The Common Cold (Book 1): A Zombie Chronicle (23 page)

The girls were grateful for the jackets, appreciating the
residual warmth still held in the cloth from the previous wearers. Rob climbed
under the tarp, and they huddled together for warmth. Jackie moaned as the pain
of her injury struck deep. Meanwhile, Rob made sure to keep his hand on the
butt of his pistol.

“So, how long were you guys out there?” Rob asked, trying to
take their minds off the cold and their crappy circumstances.

Stacey had revived a little, grateful for being able to sit
down and unwind. She was chewing on an aeroplane sandwich offered by Rob.
Unfortunately, Jackie appeared to be slowly falling into a state of shock, and
had resisted any attempts to offer her sustenance.

Stacey shivered before answering Rob’s question. “We were on
the shelf-stacking night shift; we were almost finished when our boss went mad.
He’d been in his office all night, said he had a terrible headache. He was
always a bit of a bastard, so we left him alone. We were just grateful for him
not to be around. Then I heard his door open, and it sounded like Ron fell over
as he came into the store room.”

“Who’s Ron?” Rob asked.

“Sorry, he’s the boss. Anyway, he sounded like he was tanked
up. I don’t think he saw me; I’m not stupid, I stayed hidden behind a full
shelving unit. It was weird, like he detected I was there, and then he started
frantically pulling stuff off the shelves, I think he was trying to get at me.
I was so scared, you can’t imagine. Somehow, Ron managed to pull a pallet of
stuff onto himself. I heard a dreadful squashing sound as it seemed to land on
top of his chest. I thought to myself he must be dead. Surely no one could
survive that. He sure
shoulda
been dead.” She paused
for a moment, the relating of the tale was exhausting to her, but clearly, it
needed telling, if just to make it real in her own mind.

Stacey continued. “When I had a look to see if I could help,
I was real shocked to see that he appeared to be alive, after all that.” She
shuddered at the memory, but continued. “Jackie came over; she’d just come in
from the shop floor. Like me, she hadn’t got a clue what the hell was going on,
she said there was some strange shit
goin
’ on
outside. Anyway, I swear he looked straight at us. His eyes were horrible,
blood was oozing from the corners, and the coloured bits had gone all white.
His body was flattened under the weight, and I mean flat. His arms were pinned
under the pile of dry dog food that had landed on him as he fell down, but he
was still
tryin
’ to wriggle free. Ron was squirming
and struggling like mad. Crazy as I know it sounds, it seemed as if he wanted
to bite us; every time we tried to comfort him, you know, like wipe his
forehead, he just tried to take a chunk out of us.”

She lapsed into silence; the memory of someone who, in every
sense was dead, crushed flat, but could still show that much aggression from
the neck up, horrified her and would remain in nightmares forever. All in all
she felt guilty that she and her friend had done nothing to get him out from
under the pile; he frightened them enough to keep them away. When they
eventually phoned the emergency services, there was a constant engaged tone;
finally, having caught up with the third stockroom assistant, they went outside
to try and find someone who could help. At that time, there were three of them.
Shockingly, within minutes, it was just Stacey and Jackie.

“I don’t even know how to begin telling you this, but when
we walked outside, we were attacked by what I can only describe as a gang of
mad folk, like crazy animals they were. They grabbed hold of Laura, the other
girl, so that stopped them from chasing us. We rushed out of the centre and hid
behind a van; we were scared shitless, all we could do was just watch as they
tore her apart. They just tore her apart! She screamed so loudly, and in so
much terror that I almost wet myself. I did want to help her, I really did, but
Jackie stopped me for both our sakes. That was the right thing that Jackie did,
I think we would have died, too.”

Stacey’s voice again tailed off, she went quiet, eyes moist;
the memory of what she had seen was too raw to revisit easily. It was something
that would be imprinted on her brain for the rest of her days. And then some.

“How did you finally get away?” Rob pushed, trying to stop
her from going back into shock. It was almost certain her core temperature was
low enough to cause her problems if she went to sleep.

“What?” she asked, as if just noticing his presence. “Oh, we
found that the van was unlocked, so we got in it to hide. There was a guy in
the passenger seat, he seemed to be in some sort of weird trance, we couldn’t
get his attention. He was wearing blue cable guy overalls. He just looked at
us. Then the bastard started to climb into the back with us, and we noticed his
eyes.” She shuddered, remembering his eyes. “They’d gone all milky, just like
the manager’s. No kidding, we got outta the van, and tried to lock the doors on
him. Then we ran away as fast as we could, and hid behind a dumpster. We
watched him as he struggled to get out, and started sniffing the air, as if he
could smell a barbecue or something. Totally weird. Then some poor bastard
chose that moment to leave the next door shop. The guy from the van ran so fast
it was frightening. He leapt, like one of those lions you see on TV, must have
been twenty feet, and smashed this poor fella against the wall. He just started
eating him, right there, in front of us.”

“Shit,” was all Rob could contribute.

“That’s what we thought,” Stacey said, wryly. “We stayed
there for a while, but we had no coats, and we were freezing. We decided we had
to get away, so we used the dumpsters as cover and moved off. Problem is, the
bastard seemed to detect us. It was like he could smell us on the wind, like we
was prey or something. We’ve been trying to escape him ever since. If you
hadn’t been there we’d be dead by now; or something worse.”

“Worse, I think,” Rob said, She just nodded.

“I have a sister in New York, do you know about New York?”
she said, a frown of worry on her face.

“I haven’t heard anything specific,” Rob answered evasively.
“We’re going to Castle Rock right now. Get to my wife, she’s on her own.”

“That’s not far. Where have you travelled from?”

“London, England,” he replied, smiling.

“You’re
shittin
’ me!” she
exclaimed. Jackie moaned at being disturbed, but seemed to settle back to
sleep, her breathing shallow.

“Nope. We only just got in, some bastard has nuked the
airport.”

“Jeez, Jackie and I thought we heard something weird
yesterday, late morning, I think. But we was asleep, night-shift,” she said by
way of explanation, “really messes with your body clock, makes you sleep real
heavy. Damn, a nuke.” She shook her head in disbelief.

“Why didn’t you stay home yesterday? Surely this shit was
happening then?”

“I needed the money, so does Jackie. We share a flat. We
thought whatever was going down wouldn’t last, you know, probably the military
assin
’ around like on the TV. Anyway, like I said, we
needed the rent money.”

They lapsed into silence once more; Rob appreciated that she
needed a bit of quiet time to process the dreadful happenings of the day. He
lifted the canvas flap to see where they were, and pulled it back down quickly,
his eyes watering from the cold air that had blasted his face. They were just
coming up to the Castle Rock Retail Outlet Centre on the right. They must have
been talking longer than he’d thought, as they were nearly there. Excitedly, he
poked his head through the canvas flap and window to the front cab.

“We need to get off at exit one eight one, Plum Creek
Parkway. You’ll see it in about ten more minutes,” Rob announced, and then
looked up. The road ahead was almost completely clear of any vehicles at all. A
few scattered military vehicles, without their contingent of men, were all that
could be seen, along with a few decimated corpses. He whistled, he’d never seen
the road so empty.

“It’s been like this for quite a way now,” Janet said, “How
are the women?”

“Stacey, the little ’un, is okay, or will be. Jackie has
been sleeping all the way so far, but I can tell she is in pain. She doesn’t
appear to be turning, but I can’t tell necessarily. Perhaps a scratch is a
slower burn. We’ll see.”

They drove on in silence until they could see the butte
rising ahead, from which the town earned its name. It was impressive, with the
American flag at its peak, fluttering lightly in the breeze. The rocky outcrops
made them realise just how much the countryside had changed as they had driven
southwards.

“There’s the sign, stay right, old buddy.” Daniel could hear
the anticipation in Rob’s voice. Another few minutes and he’d be home. As it
turned out, the military had blocked the on-ramps to the Interstate, clearly
intending to stop the rapid advance of the problem. At least they could now
account for the absent traffic. As they turned onto Plum Creek Parkway, they
saw large numbers of bodies, on whose remains birds and the Infected feasted.
Quickly checking on Jackie’s state - he hated her being behind his back in her
condition - Rob returned to the window to direct them to his house. There was
carnage everywhere, with them occasionally seeing a normal person running between
the houses. All three of them had their guns at the ready; this area was still
very much a hot zone.

The neighbourhood had been pretty; well-groomed, neat
verges, freshly painted houses that demonstrated the love and attention
lavished onto them. Now though, that neatness had been invaded. Several cars
had driven out of control across those same precise verges, leaving trails of
destruction and mutilated corpses in their wake. Burning cars had scalded the
immaculate paint work on several properties, a few of which had burned to the
ground, nothing left but a smouldering heap of rubble where someone’s heart and
soul had resided.

At seeing the destruction, Rob’s heart was racing, his
impatience telling in his voice, urging them on, faster. Daniel didn’t rise to
it, it would be a catastrophe if they crashed at this point, yards away after
thousands of miles; the word irony simply wouldn’t cover it adequately. Turning
off South Plum Creek Boulevard onto Balsa Drive, Rob let out a huge sigh of
relief as he saw his house, more or less intact. Other than the automatic
gunfire holes stitched across the front, it was as he remembered leaving it.

“There, number twenty three,” he exclaimed, pointing. “Go up
onto the grass, park as close as you can.” Without further discussion, Rob
retreated to the back once more, and unclipped the canvas flap of the truck.
Making sure the girls under the tarp were still okay, he poked his head out to
check all was clear.

“You two, stay here a moment. Once I’ve made sure all is
well, I’ll come back for you.” Stacey nodded vigorously and Rob jumped out,
landing quietly. He crouched down next to the truck’s rear wheel, rifle at the
ready, and saw that there was no immediate threat. Running to the front door,
he called out quietly.

“Sandy, you there?” he whispered as loudly as possible.

“Oh, Rob.” There was a scrabbling the other side of the
door, as his wife unjammed the chair holding it in place. Face to face they
stared for a moment in disbelief, and then fell into each other’s arms.

“Oh, God. I’ve missed you. I thought…” he began, before she
planted her lips on his, silencing him.

Daniel and Janet, closely followed by the children and the
dog, walked up behind them and, a little embarrassed for intruding on their
first embrace, waited for the reunion to abate.

“Sorry, guys,” Daniel interrupted after a short while, “can
we come in, please? We are a little exposed out here.”

Coming back to the real world once more, Sandy and Rob
grudgingly let go of each other, and they all went into the house.

“Darling, I’ve got to get a couple of others from the truck,
one of them is injured.” Rob began, remembering.

“I’ll get them,” Daniel interrupted, “you stay with Sandy.
Hi Sandy,” he said smiling, and pecked her on the cheek. “Sandy, this is my
wife, Janet, and these two are Penny and Sam.”

The women began to organise themselves, clucking around the
children in the comfort, warmth, and relative safety of the house. Daniel went
back to the truck, and lowered the tailgate, quietly, to make it easier to get
the girls out. He climbed in, and found the two of them still huddled together
for warmth.

“Come on, let’s get inside, where it’s warm.” Daniel said
gently. At the word ‘warm’, Stacey rallied, and began to help her friend get
up. The damaged leg had swollen since the injury, but still looked for all the
world like a normal wound. Mentally crossing his fingers that a scratch, even a
deep one, wasn’t contagious, Daniel helped hoist Jackie towards the edge of the
flatbed. While they did this, Rob had come out to help, and between them, they
lowered her to the ground. As gently as possible, they led her into the house,
and laid her on the carpeted floor in the living room, placing a pillow under
her head.

“Let’s secure the truck,” Daniel said, and the two men went
back outside, leaving the women to tend to the cold and injured.

Locking the doors and securing the canvas flap, they
surveyed the immediate area. For as far as they could see, bodies were strewn
on lawns and on the road; one could even be seen in a tree in someone’s yard,
although how it had landed there was anyone’s guess. There were a few slower
Infected wandering around aimlessly a few houses away, prisoners within their
own little worlds.

“Are the ones on the ground actually dead?” Rob wondered.

“They look it, but I’m prepared to make that assumption from
right here,” Danny said, pointing at the ground he was standing on. “No more
risks.”