Undead (9780545473460) (13 page)

“No way.” Pete bends low. “Besides, they put it here.”

“What?” Smitty's face is red and steaming.

“Look, no hole where the roots were.” He scuffs his boot on the snow. “This tree didn't fall; it was never growing here. It was moved, probably seconds after our bus arrived. Placed here to stop us from leaving. The couple in the Mini? This is why they came back: They couldn't get out.”

For a moment I think Smitty is going to try his snowboard decapitation trick on Pete. Then he flings the board down and stomps back onto the bus.

“We need to go,” I urge them. “Walk out on the main road, take our chances.”

“Maybe not!” Smitty shouts from the bus.

“We'll get back on board!” Pete cries. “It's safe enough there!”

I dodge round the side of the bus. Carrot Man, Gareth, and the rest are almost on the exit road. In a minute, they'll be with us. “No way.” I grab the snowboard from Pete's feet. “There are seven of them. Adults. They'll break through those doors and it'll be suppertime.”

“What if we hide in the hold?” Pete's face is stricken. He's begging me, and I don't know if I want to hug him or slap him.

“For how long?” I shake my head. “We hit the highway, we keep moving. They can't outrun us.”

“What about Alice?”

Damn. I forgot about Alice and her lack of consciousness.

“We'll work something out.” I pull him toward the doors. “Come on! We have to gather our stuff, we don't have any time.” As I reach the doors, the bus engine cranks up. Smitty's at the wheel. We leap out of the way back into the snow as the bus reverses, engine revving violently.

“No!” Pete and I cry, both knowing what's coming next.

Smitty pays no heed. He plows forward and rams the bus into the tree as hard as he can. The tree hardly moves. Smitty reverses the bus with its beaten-up fender again, and tries a second time. This time the tree shifts a little. Thinking he's on to something, Smitty reverses farther still and goes for third time lucky, hitting the tree with full force. The back of the bus skids and jackknifes, there's a shattering sound, and the windshield cracks and falls away. Smoke rises from the front of the bus.

Our sanctuary on wheels has finally met its match.

I jump on board. “We
have
to
leave
!” I shout at Smitty, who is still gripping the wheel. “I'll get your stuff, you get Alice!”

I throw our backpacks out into the snow and head to row 21 to fetch some gear. If we can somehow pull Alice along on a board, or use skis to carry her . . .

I glance outside; they're almost with us. We have seconds. I load up and begin back up the aisle. Smitty has moved Alice; we can make it.

The floor lifts up in front of me. Someone is coming out of the hatch. I stop in my tracks.

A small blond head pops out. A boy, not more than three years old, I'd guess. Then a second blond head. A girl, a couple of years older than me. For a second I wonder how I know them. Then it comes to me. The moody teenage girl in the café and her little brother. I raise a ski pole and brace myself to attack.

“Hi! Have we crashed?” The girl speaks with a lilting Scottish accent. “Are they here?”

“Bumped my head,” the boy says.

I lower my ski pole.

The girl takes a good look at me and her face changes. “You're . . . you're not one of them, are you?”

I wipe at my face with my sleeve. “Just a nosebleed. And yes, they're here. We have to go. Now.”

As I climb out of the bus with the two stowaways, Smitty's and Pete's faces are an absolute picture. It's a classic moment; I wish I had time to savor it. Pete actually does a double take, then kind of scuffles and falls into the ditch. The boy giggles, and his sister shushes him.

“Who the f —” Smitty starts.

“It's OK,” I say. “They're not infected.”

“You sure of that?” Smitty recovers quickly; he's fixing Alice's floppy feet to a snowboard.

Pete picks himself up off the ground, still staring. “You were hiding on the bus? Where did you come from?”

“I'm Lily,” the girl says. “This is my brother, Cam. We were in the café, but then we went out —”

There's an ominous groan from the end of the bus. They're here.

“Great to meet you, stories later,” Smitty grimaces, tightening the fastenings over Alice's feet. “We have to move. Malice is not home, but we can pull her along.” He hauls her to her feet and flings one of her arms over his shoulder. “Muscle up, Pete, and take her other arm. She's heavier than she looks.”

“Oh my god!” Lily screams as Gareth appears around the side of the bus.

I reach down and swipe up Cam, blood from my nose gushing onto his poor little face. Lily snatches him from me as he begins to wail, and they run through the snow to the other side of the tree trunk. Gareth looks really, really annoyed. Maybe he's got a nicotine crave on. That must really suck: being a zombie who can't get a smoke.

Two men appear behind him, staggering forward, drooling and groaning. One is wearing a torn, blood-spattered white shirt and checkered trousers, topped off with a little paper hat. The other guy looks like a builder; he's wearing the remains of denim overalls and a tool belt. Together they make me think of LEGO figures. “Here's LEGO Zombie Chef! Here's LEGO Zombie Builder! See their grasping hands and posable limbs!”

“Roberta, are you coming?”

Smitty's shouting shakes me into reality. I hitch on my backpack and hike another couple of bags over one shoulder, grab a snowboard, and scramble into the ditch and around the tree. Smitty and Pete are handling Alice-on-a-board just fine, but it's up to me to haul all of our bags. I throw the board down, stuff one foot in the bindings, and push off. I'm no natural boarder, but it's not like there's time to don boots and skis.

It's a chase scene in slo-mo, like one of those dreams where you try to run but can't. The snow is not too deep, but there's thick ice below it. We move as fast as we can — which is not very fast, just enough to keep the motley crew behind at a distance. Lily leads the way on foot with Cam on her back. The moaning behind us is louder — clearly
they
don't like finding an obstacle in their way, either — but I don't look around.
Keep going and they can't catch you.

It's getting darker and it is mercilessly cold. At the back of my mind is a nagging realization that if we don't find shelter, the cold may well finish us off before the monsters do. I can see the junction leading out onto the main road. I push myself off and glide past the girl and her brother.
Please god, don't let me wipe out — Smitty will never let me forget it.
I reach the junction in no great style and try to remember which way we turned in — and did we pass through any villages before we got here? To the left is silent road and trees, to the right is the same, but leading up a steep hill. I'm stunned at my own lack of observation. I have absolutely no memory of what came before the Cheery Chomper. Luckily, I don't have to remember.

“Turn right!” the girl shouts. “We live up there.”

“There's a town?” I ask as she reaches me, panting.

She shakes her head. “It's a wee village, really. But we'll be safe in our house, and there's a phone.”

“How far?” Smitty and Pete have caught up.

The girl shrugs. “A couple of minutes in the car.”

Smitty makes a face. “Lucky I brought my Ferrari.”

She stares at him. “Maybe a mile or something?”

I can see Pete begin to wilt.

“That's nothing.” I force a smile. “What, twenty minutes on foot? We can get there before it's totally dark.”

“Dragging Alice?” Pete begins to shake. “Up that hill? With them behind us?”

I look behind me. They're still coming: the LEGO men, Booby Woman, the couple, and Gareth. All bar Carrot Man. Something tells me he's probably rolling around in a ditch.

“Look how slow they are, man!” Smitty says. “We keep going, they'll never catch us.”

So we start up the road. I focus on the brow of the hill. The horizon undulates ahead of me, the trees leaning in on each other over the road, the road appearing to move as if I'm on an endless white treadmill. I fix my gaze on it, willing it closer. And then it does move.

I stop. We all do.

Smitty looks up the hill and frowns.

“What's wrong?” Pete asks, nervously looking behind us.

Our pursuers haven't made it onto the main road.

Smitty raises a hand. “Listen.”

We strain our ears. There is
something
. Something is off. It's almost as if the pressure's changed, like when you're on a plane and your ears pop and you start hearing things in a different key. It's a hum, so low and constant that we didn't notice it creeping in at first.

“A car!” Pete says, elated.

A truck, maybe. Or a tractor. Something grittier than a car. And it's coming toward us from the direction of the hilltop. My mind races as I imagine truckloads of soldiers coming into view. I've never been one for boys in uniform, but I might be rapidly changing my mind on that one.

“Stay frosty, people,” says Smitty, but I can hear the hope in his voice.

“They're coming,” Alice moans, her head lolling on Smitty's shoulder.

“Hey, Malice!” Smitty says to her, almost affectionately. “Way to time waking up! Bang on, old girl!” He kisses her head, and a shameful little part of me dies somewhere deep inside. “Lean yourself against Uncle Pete for a mo', 'kay?” He practically throws her onto Pete, and starts to stride up the hill. “Woo-hoo! Here we are!” he calls. f staying chill.

Then he stops. And at the same moment, I realize why.

The gray blur on the horizon sharpens into focus just as the noise does. No trucks, no tractors, no military men to whisk us away to safety, but hundreds of stumbling shapes, growling and groaning and grumbling.

An army of monsters.

Lily lets out a strangled half gasp.

“Scaredy Lily?” Cam mumbles into her shoulder.

“What do we do?” Pete whispers. His head whips from up the hill to down, where Gareth and his cutie coterie have started up the incline toward us, slow but relentless.

“Don't panic,” I say, which must go down in history as the All Time Lamest Comment Ever. We instinctively back into the tree line, dragging Alice with us. Smitty is still transfixed by the hordes.

“We have to go back,” I say. And once I've made the decision, Pete's throwing himself down the hill at speed, leaving me to prop up semi-conscious Alice. Lily follows with Cam. “Smitty!” I yell. He's still staring up the hill at the oncoming masses. “Some help here!”

He looks back at me, utterly crestfallen. My heart breaks a little; I feel it, too.

The Gareth Posse are now walking in a line, shoulder to shoulder, across the road. Must be some kind of hunting instinct. Lily falters and turns to shout up at me. “We can cut into the woods!” She points. “Find a way up the hill to get to the village!”

I shake my head. “We're faster on the road. And newsflash,” I add cruelly, “your village is infected. There's no point heading there.”

“But what about — ?” She thrusts out a hand to the six who are cutting our way off, her face desperate and crumpled.

“We can get past them!” I struggle down the hill, sliding Alice on the board, and yes, she is heavier than she looks. There's a dark red mat of hair at the back of her blond head. All things considered, it's amazing she's still standing. Then Smitty's there, taking Alice's other arm, his eyes wild and his breath heavy. I look at him and swallow hard. “Take my board. Whiz down the road and do your thing. We need you to distract them while we get Alice and the kid past.”

He doesn't need telling twice. In fact, he's almost too fast, already nearly down at the bottom of the hill before I can catch my breath. He buzzes Gareth, making him fall over on the hard ground, before doubling back and taking out the legs of Booby Woman.

“Quick!” I tell the others. “Get down the hill as fast as you can.”

Alice shrugs me off. It's as if she's drunk. She kicks her feet free, sits on the snowboard like it's a sled, and before I can stop her, lies back and pushes off. The board flies down the bank. But she can't control it, and as she leans and banks sharply left, she wipes out LEGO Zombie Chef.

“Go, Malice!” yells Smitty as he dodges past Gareth again. “Zombie Luge Bowling!”

It hasn't done much for her concussion, though. She falls off the board into some soft snow by the tree line. Pete, Lily and Cam, and I hurry down the hill on the other side — as LEGO Zombie Builder stumbles toward her.

But Smitty's on it. He pushes his board into action, and reaches her before LEGO Builder can. He pulls her up in front of him, and they ride his board in tandem, like some kind of weird ballet.

We're past them. I look back up the hill. The growling legions are still advancing, but they don't have snowboards, or brains, or even fully functioning legs. As they emerge out of the shadows, I can see young kids and grannies, and probably the mailman and the guy who came to fix the frozen pipes. How did they all turn? Did they get the evil Veggie Juice, or were they bitten? And how are there so many of them? Is this everywhere? Where will we be safe?

I run clumsily after the others. Alice is walking now, occasionally shooting out a hand to steady herself on Pete's arm. Now I know she must be concussed — there's no way she'd consciously touch him if she wasn't. Smitty is trailblazing to who knows where. The road ahead gives no clues.

Full-on dark now. If it wasn't for the snow and a sliver of moon, we'd be totally screwed. We could be heading from the frying pan into the fire, for all we know . . . but hey. Anywhere but here is fine with me, and if we stick to the road there's always the chance we'll meet some more live, non-monstery people — preferably with vehicles and big guns.

Soon we'll be out of the zoms' sight. I wonder if they can track us, or if they only chase what they can see or hear.

I catch up with the others. They're having a discussion about where we're headed.

“So, is it near?” Smitty is — typically — striding ahead, the board now tucked under his arm.

“I said I don't know,” Lily says, exasperated.

“Actually you said you ‘dinny ken'!” shouts Smitty. “And unless he's
Ken
” — he points to her brother — “I don't have a clue what you're on about.”

“Me neither,” I say. “What are we looking for?”

Lily turns to me, breathing heavily as she struggles to keep walking with Cam on her back. “There's a village — or a small town, I think — a few miles away. I don't know how far because we only moved here a few weeks ago.”

“Great!” Smitty blusters. “The only survivors we find haven't got a clue where the hell they are, either!”

“Here!” Pete shouts at us from the side of the road. “This way!”

We rush over to where he's brushing snow off a brown signpost pointing left. On it is a little picture of what looks like a chess piece and the words
1 MILE
.

“It's a castle!” he says, triumphant.

“So?” says Smitty.

“Fortification.” Pete's eyes gleam.

Smitty frowns at him. “Wuh?”

“Thick stone walls. Big wooden doors with solid locks. Little windows. And weapons, Smitty, weapons.”

“Where is it?” Smitty's decided.

“Wait!” I say. “What about sticking to the road in case there's someone looking for us? And what about this village or town that might be a couple of miles away?”

“
Might
be,” says Pete. “Bobby, it's cold, it's dark, we've had kind of a big day —”

“They must have a phone!” says Lily, jumping ship. “And something to eat.”

There's a
thump
a few feet behind us.

Alice has fallen headlong into the snow; she can go no farther.

“Castle it is, then,” I say.

Smitty and Pete gather her up. The turnoff is a single car-width of virgin snow.

I pause. “What if they can see our footprints?”

“More likely smell that trail of blood you're leaving,” Smitty says.

My hand goes up to my nose. It's started dripping again. “They're not sharks, Smitty,” I say snippily. “For all we know, it's your rancid feet they're attracted to.”