The Zombie Saga (Book 2): Burn The Dead (Purge) (8 page)

Unable to look at my
beloved dog.

Monday
mornings still suck even without a weekend attached.

Didn’t sleep a wink last
night, apart from maybe an hour of two. Couldn’t get the images of Mr Rosemont
out of my head, and his poor wife.

The clock on my bedside
table reads: 6:44 a.m. I close my eyes for a moment in disgust at how soon I’ve
got to get up, and how completely shattered I am.
Please don’t let today be
too difficult
. Don’t think my body and mind will take anything too tasking.

* * *

Once I’m showered,
dressed, I head down to the kitchen for breakfast. Dad is sitting at the table
eating cereal. Mum is standing by the worktop, buttering some toast.

“Morning, Angel,” Dad
says, chirpily. “How was your first day on the job?”

I sit down. “It was fine.
Just going through some training tactics, watched a couple of videos. Nothing
special.” Don’t fancy going into the grisly details. Not yet anyway. Especially
not after last night’s puking incident. Not only is it embarrassing, but it
would raise too many questions. Questions that I’m just not ready, nor in the
mood to answer.

“Anything dangerous?” Mum
asks, handing me two slices of toast on a small plate. “Did you see any of
those Necs?”

“Thanks, Mum,” I say as I
take the plate from her. “No, nothing dangerous yet. It’s too soon for all
that. Just boring stuff.”

Mum kisses the top of my
head and then walks back over to the worktop. “That’s good, love. Can’t rush
these things. That’s how accidents happen.”

“So what’s your day like
today?” Dad asks as I take a mouthful of toast. “You working?”

I chew my breakfast quickly
and then answer. “Back in for ten today.”

“You’re a busy little
girl,” Dad says, taking a swig of his coffee. He then gets up off the chair.
“Well, I’m off to work. I’ll see you two later. Okay.” He walks over to me and
kisses me on the cheek. “You be careful today. Don’t do anything stupid, and
listen to that boss of yours.”

“I will, Dad,” I reply.
“Don’t worry. I’ll just be shadowing him. Nothing too risky. I promise.”

“Good girl,” he says, and
then walks over to Mum and kisses her on the lips. “See you later, love.”

“See you later,” Mum says,
buttering another slice of toast.

* * *

The radio is on at full
blast as I drive to work, trying to block out thoughts of yesterday. I’m
annoyed with myself for feeling like this. On the one hand, I never thought I’d
feel anything but pure excitement at the prospect of catching Necs for a
living. On the other, I’m mad with myself for not expecting that I’d feel so
apprehensive about returning to work. Surely every newbie gets a little shaky
after a first day. I wouldn’t be normal if it didn’t have an effect on my mood.

Once HQ is in my sights, I
can feel those bloody butterflies again, the same ones that showed up on the
day of my interview. But these have teeth—the teeth of a hungry Nec, gnawing at
the walls of my stomach, trying to burst out of my abdomen. I try my best to
drown them with heavy intakes of air, breathed in through my open window.

I could just turn back,
tell them I’m sick—
or just quit altogether
. No one would blame me. My
parents would be over the moon. I could just go back to my old job, spend my
days serving rude customers.

I could.

But I won’t.

I didn’t come this far
just to throw in the towel now. All those letters just to get an interview. All
my research, all my studying just to show the world that a woman can do this
job just as well as a man. If I turn this car ‘round before I’ve even made it
two days out in the field, then I’m just a pathetic failure. To all these
people I swore I’d help, all those families I vowed I’d keep safe from
infection, from the dead. I could never live with myself if I didn’t at least
give it my best shot.

These other Cleaners would
love to see me hand in my notice, they’d laugh in my face. But it won’t happen.
Not while I’ve still got some fight in me.

Catherine Woods is not
a quitter!

The moment I pull into the
grounds of HQ, I feel sick. Parking the car quickly, I hang my head out of the
window, like a dog in need of fresh air. I hold this pose for maybe two or
three minutes, taking in as much oxygen as my lungs will carry, until the
nausea finally subsides and I once again feel human. Almost. The cold breeze
feels nice against my face, almost sending me to sleep. But then the sound of
the entrance doors opening with force, and a barrage of heavy boots and loud
chatter pulls me out of my daze, and I open my eyes. I see Darren, Andrew, and
three other Cleaners coming out of the building, all fully kitted, clearly
ready to leave for a job. I quickly park my car and then climb out. “What’s
happening, Andrew?” I ask, walking over to them. “Everything all right?”

“Oh, good, you’re here,”
Andrew says, sounding flustered and agitated. “We need to get you kitted up
right now because we’ve got an urgent job to get to.”

“What, all of us?”

“Yeah.
All
of us,”
Darren shouts over, climbing into a van with another Cleaner. “We need every
man
and
woman, out. Andrew, get her ready and we’ll meet you up there.”

Andrew nods and puts up
his thumb as two vans pull off out of the grounds.

We sprint inside to get me
changed. Once I’m kitted up, he does a quick check to make sure I haven’t
forgotten anything.

As long as I’ve got my
gun, that’s the main thing.

We hop into the van and
drive off. Andrew tells me that we’re heading back to Bristol.

To a place called
Crandale.

Driving
through Bristol City Centre, everything seems as it should be: people dressed
in business suits walking along the pavement, teenagers loitering outside shops
and bus stops. And the roads are as busy as you’d expect them to be on a Monday
afternoon.

Andrew’s been quiet for
most of the journey. He seems tense, worried. Which makes
me
worried. He
says there’s been an outbreak, which has spread across the whole of Crandale—an
area of Bristol that covers several large streets, a church, a primary school,
and a community centre. We’ve been called in to assist, even though this is out
of our jurisdiction. Apparently, it’s been contained. For now. Police
blockades, the works. Nothing’s getting in or out.

Except us.

As we approach Crandale, I
see police lights flashing. Looks like one of the blockades. There is an array
of police cars and a portable steel wall, about three metres high, stretched
across the entire width of the road, and held in place by a flat metal base
positioned on both sides. And parked next to each base is a white van with a
police officer on the roof, both armed with what looks like a tranq gun, aimed
directly behind it—two makeshift watchtowers. The sight terrifies and excites
me in equal measures, like sitting on a rollercoaster, moments before the track
descends.

Just as Andrew nears the
parked police cars, a female officer steps out onto the road, in front of us,
waving her hands to stop us. Andrew slows down to a stop. The officer walks
around to Andrew’s window; he pushes the button and the window slides down. He
shows his ID badge.

“Hi sorry, guys,” she
says. She then shouts over to a male officer in front of us, his police car
blocking our path. “Let ‘em through, Chris!”

The other officer moves
his car to the side to let us pass.

“Thanks, love,” Andrew
says. “Are all the walls in place?”

“Yeah. Most of them.”

“What’s that supposed to
mean?”

“Well, we don’t have
enough for the back lanes, so we’ve got the riot police and vans blocking them.
The lanes are fairly narrow, though—nothing’s getting in or out.”

Andrew sighs, shaking his
head. “Typical.” He starts to advance towards the steel wall.

“Good luck,” she says as
he retracts his window.

As we near the barricade,
my lips dry, my heart racing, all I can think about is Mum and Dad, sat in work,
thinking that I’m just in some training exercise, safe and sound.

Two police officers unhook
the giant latch at the centre of the wall, and start to pull it open like a
gate-on-wheels, splitting the structure in two, using the giant hinges attached
to each base. As the wall slowly parts, it reveals nothing more than an empty,
everyday street. Fixed to the front of the first house, I see a sign for Rose
Avenue. I grip my door handle tightly, trying to hide my trembling hands from
Andrew. But he hasn’t noticed; his eyes are locked onto the road ahead.

From my window, I catch a
glimpse of the officer as he holds the wall open. I can’t tell if his calm,
emotionless face tells me that everything will be all right—or that I’m never
coming out of here alive. I try to read Andrew’s expression, but it’s
impossible. He’s got that built-in macho pride thing, the one that likes to
show the world that nothing bothers him, that everything will be fine.

I’ll get there soon.

I hear the steel wall slam
shut behind us—and the rollercoaster finally descends into the unknown.

We
drive slowly up Rose Avenue. The street is deserted. Silent. Eerie. Like it’s
the end of the world and every soul has either perished, or left the planet.

“So what happens now?” I
ask Andrew.

“We need to get to the
church at the top of Richmond, and meet up with the other Cleaners. It should
be somewhere after this street.”

“And then what?”

“Well, I’m not really
sure, Cath. We’ll have to go with the flow. If the infection
is
as big
as they say,
then
…”

“Then ‘what’?” I ask; my
words lined with worry.

“Then we need to be ready
for anything.” He turns to me. “But don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

He tweaks the dial at the
top of the walkie-talkie, and then fastens it to his vest.

“Where’s
my
radio?”
I ask.

“I’m sorry, Cath. This is
the last one. Normally there’s enough to go ‘round, but three are still being
repaired, and well, the other Cleaners have the rest. But you won’t need one,
anyway. As long as you stick with me, nothing’s gonna—”

“Look out!” I scream.
There’s a man standing in the middle of the road.

Andrew slams on the
brakes, propelling us forward, stopped only by our seatbelts. But he’s too
late. The man clips the side of the bonnet and is flung onto the pavement,
landing on his side, hard, just a metre or so from my door. Can’t see if the
man is still conscious; his head is facing away from us. I unclip my seatbelt
and grab the door handle to go to the man.

“Stop, Cath!” Andrew
orders.

I let go of the handle in
fright, turning to Andrew.

“What the hell are you
doing?” he asks. “You can’t go running outside recklessly. He might be
infected.”

“But what if he’s not? He
might need our help.”

Andrew lets out a slow
sigh. “Put down your window halfway and then point your gun at him.”

I do as he says, checking
that my gun is loaded before I aim it through the opening. I already know it’s
loaded—I’ve checked
twice
—but I can’t help myself. I somehow manage to
hold the gun steady as I inspect the man for any movement. “I think we killed
him.”

“I doubt it. We only
grazed him. He’s probably unconscious.”

“Should we call out to
him? Try and get his attention? He might just be in a daze or something.”

“No, too risky. We could
end up drawing out a swarm.”

“We can’t just leave him
there.”

“Look, any other time and
I would. But we’ve had fuck all Intel from the Bristol lot. We have no idea how
many are infected. The place might be teeming with them. So we have to be
cautious. At least until we get to the church and speak with the other
Cleaners. They can fill us in on the extent of the outbreak. Then we can go
back for him.”

“But it’s pretty big,
right? I mean, all these streets closed off. That’s pretty big.”

“Yeah, it is. That’s why
we stay in the van until we have a strategy.”

I give him a nervous stare,
mixed in with a look of disappointment that we’re about to leave a potentially
injured man on the pavement. Andrew spots this look.

“Fuck,” he says under his
breath. “All right, we’ll check him out.” He puts his helmet on, opens the
door, and climbs out. “But stay in the bloody van. I mean it, Cath. Don’t move
a muscle. It’s too risky.”

I give him a nod.

Gun pointed in the
direction of the man, Andrew moves slowly towards him. Just a foot or so away
from him, he scans his surroundings, and using his right foot, he gives the man
a gentle prod.

No response.

“Do you think he’s dead?”
I whisper.

Frowning, Andrew shushes
me. But just as he does, the man begins to stir. I clench up, ready to fire a
tranq into the back of his head.

Andrew steps away. “Hello?
Are you all right?”

A deep, guttural moan
comes from the man.

“Are you all right?” he
asks again. “Have you been bitten?”

The man lets out another
moan, this time much louder, prompting Andrew to step back even further. Using
the hard pavement as support, the man starts to push himself up, still with his
back to us. He slowly starts to turn his head towards us. I see his dead,
soulless eyes, his teeth, smothered with brown blood, his light-green flesh,
drained of all warmth and life. The Nec doesn’t have time to snarl, to attack.
Andrew unloads a tranq into his forehead, dropping him instantly.

Pulling out a muzzle,
Andrew straps it around the sedated Nec, and then secures his wrists and feet
with the cable-ties. He doesn’t bother with the body bag and stretcher. There’s
no time. Andrew just throws his arms under the Nec’s armpits, and yanks him up
off the concrete as if he was lifting nothing more than a drunken friend. He
drags the Nec to the rear of the van, the back doors squeaking as they open.
The van judders as the body is thrown inside. I’m half expecting Andrew to slam
the doors in anger, pissed off that I practically guilt-tripped him into going
outside. But he doesn’t, he closes them softly, with just the small click of
the lock. He’s smarter than that. Smarter than
me
. He wouldn’t risk
drawing attention to us. He climbs back into his seat, closes the door, takes
off his helmet, and continues up Rose Avenue.

“Close your window,” he
says, coldly.

I hold down the button
with my thumb and the window automatically ascends. “Sorry, Andrew. I didn’t
mean to put you in danger.”

“It’s fine, Cath. Don’t
worry about it. We did need to check on him. It’s our job. I just hate not
knowing fuck all about a job. It’s not the way I like to work. It’s too
dangerous. And where there’s one Nec, there’s usually a swarm just around the
corner.”

“Well, we’re here now.
We’ll find out soon enough.”

Andrew raises his
eyebrows. “Yeah. Soon enough.”

At the top of the street,
we stop at the junction. Attached to a wall, there’s a sign for Richmond. We
check out the street up and down. I don’t see any wandering Necs. A little
further up I can see the church. Andrew sees it too so he sets off again, up
the hill towards it, the van’s engine struggling noisily in such a low gear.
Too
noisy
. I can see Andrew’s face recoil as he changes gear.

As we make our approach, I
see another man hobbling towards us, his head slumped to one side. I can’t be
sure from here, but my hunch tells me that this man died some time ago. Andrew
stops the van just outside the church gate, and pops his helmet back on. “Stay
here,” he orders as he climbs out, shutting the door behind him. He shoots the
Nec and then disappears through the gate.

I try my very best to stay
calm as I wait for his return. I put my helmet on just in case he doesn’t come
back, and I’m stuck out here on my own.

Don’t be silly, Cath.
He’s only been gone ten seconds. What’s the matter with you? Don’t be so
overdramatic.

When a minute passes, and
he’s still not back, I start to panic. I can’t stop my pulse racing, my erratic
breathing.

Maybe he’s in trouble.
Should I get out and look for him? What if he’s—

My body jolts in fright
when I hear the driver’s door opening.

Relief washes over me when
I see Andrew.

“Come on,” he says,
confidently. “It’s safe. And take the keys with you. Can’t risk some idiot
stealing it.”

“With all this going on?
They’d have to be mad.”

“Remember what I said at
the farm? ‘Scared people do dumb things’.”

I climb out of the van,
gun still firmly in my grip, and walk over to Andrew. “What’s happening?”

“First, we need to get a
muzzle on this Nec,” Andrew says, pointing to the man on the floor. “And then
we drag him, and the other Nec, into the church.”

“Okay. Do you want
me
to secure this one?” I ask, pointing to the newly sedated Nec, lying on the
pavement.

“Yeah. If you can. But be
quick, Cath. I don’t wanna be out here any longer than we have to.”

“No worries.”

There’s plenty to worry
about.

Kneeling down, I unclip a
muzzle from my belt and place it over the Nec’s mouth before I even give myself
a chance to freak out, to picture the Nec waking and biting me. I fasten the
back buckle in record speed. By the time I’ve tied his limbs, Andrew has pulled
the first Nec off the van and has started to drag him by the legs, through the
gates, into the church grounds. “Follow me, Cath,” Andrew says, struggling to
speak with the weight of the Nec. “I’m sure you’ll manage. Yours doesn’t look
that heavy.”

“Okay.” Grabbing his
ankles, I start to pull him towards the gates. He weighs an absolute ton, but
after that awful sack-pulling challenge, one Nec shouldn’t be that much of a
problem.

Inside the grounds, I
follow Andrew up a narrow path, through an old, clearly disused graveyard.
Couldn’t have found a more fitting place to be dragging a corpse. The route up
to the church is steep, and the concrete is broken and rough. I have to stop
three times before I’m even halfway up. The church is as ancient and neglected
as the graves that surround it. There’s no way in the world that anyone still
uses this place for worship. It’s a huge building—beautiful, in fact—with
stained-glass windows darkened by dust and decay. Most of the natural grey
stonework is cracked, either from wear-and-tear or vandalism, and vines climb
its walls like blood vessels.

Reaching the top of the
path, we come to a corner. I follow Andrew around it and I see the church
entrance, and a set of huge wooden doors, once again bruised and battered like
the rest the place.
I’m never getting married in one of these things. Way
too depressing.

And when I drag the man
inside, and see the mass of sedated Necs all around me, I find yet another
reason never to get married in a church.

Gasping in horror, I drop
the Nec’s legs, and go to place a hand over my mouth, only to find my visor
instead. I want to scream but can’t; my mouth is too dry. My vocals have
seized.

Nearly every inch of the
place, every pew, every space on the cold stone floor, is occupied by captured
Necs. There must be at least seventy.
Maybe more
. Half sealed in yellow
body bags, while others are loose, limbs tied, mouths muzzled. Scanning in
revulsion, I spot a few squirming—sedation clearly worn off. The image is
dismaying—
disturbing
—to see so many, so close. It’s overwhelming.

“Don’t panic, Cath,”
Andrew says as if I’ve merely walked through a cobweb. “You’re safe. They ain’t
going anywhere.”

When the walls stop
closing in on me, when the tunnel vision starts to fade, when my mind begins to
process what I’m witnessing, I manage to squeeze a sentence out. “What the fuck
is this?”

“It’s a morning’s worth of
work,” a man says, from the direction of the nave, his voice echoing around the
crumbling walls.

As he approaches, I can
see that he’s a Cleaner, his helmet under his left arm. Surely the last place
it should be in a place like this.

“Where’s the rest of the
Cleaners?” I ask him.

“Rounding up more Necs.
It’s pretty bad out there. We’ve been at it for hours. We got most of the
uninfected out this morning. But that wasn’t easy with bugger all staff.”

“What do you mean? I
thought you’d have a massive crew up here. Where are they?”

The man snorts. “Massive
crew? Fat chance of that. We don’t have the budget for it. Same as you lot down
your neck of the woods.”

“That’s why they called
us, Cath,” Andrew cuts in. “None of us can cope alone with an outbreak this
big. There just isn’t the staff for it.”

“So why are we bringing
them here?” I ask, suddenly aware that the Nec I just dragged in is still by my
feet. Andrew sees me flinch and grabs the Nec’s arm and pulls him over to the
aisle with the others.

“Safest place for them
while we wait for another lorry to pick ‘em up. Lorries can only store thirty
at a time, and we can’t exactly spare any Cleaners to take them over to
Romkirk. It’s just easier to keep them all in one place until we can ship them
out.”

“So where do you want us
to start sweeping?” Andrew asks the man.

“Well, I sent your guys
down to Marbleview Street about fifteen minutes ago, so if you two can take The
Mount.”

“Where’s that?” Andrew
asks.

“Just right as you come
out of the church. It’s near the primary school.”

“What about the school
kids?” I ask, seeing images of children running for their lives, being hunted
by a pack of rotten Necs. “Are they still inside?”

The man shakes his head.
“No, they’re out. That was our first protocol. But you’re gonna have to go door
to door. Take your van, and fill the fucker up with as many Necs as it’ll hold.
And get back here ASAP.”