I ran out through the door, followed by Clay and Charlotte, and I stood at the top of the staircase. From there I saw the HZ had landed on the roof of a truck. It slid down onto the snow and began running through the car park. I left Sean, Misfit, Clay and Charlotte to leap after it and I darted back inside. The others had already disappeared down the internal staircase we’d come up in and I raced down until I reached the ground level, through the exit and out into the snow.
I saw that Sean had caught up with the HZ. He’d knocked it to the ground on its back and he straddled it on the snow. I sprinted past the others, towards Sean and the HZ. When I reached them, I kicked the HZ in its side just above Sean’s knee, while Sean held it down. ‘Where are they?’ I demanded, standing over it. The rest of the team gathered behind me. ‘Where are they?’ I said again but the HZ just grinned at me, showing me its sharpened teeth. I kicked it again and again and again. ‘What has Marco done with our people?’
Shane sprang forwards towards the HZ and, dropping down onto his knees beside it, he grabbed the HZ’s head in his hands. ‘Where’s my family?’ he said as he lifted the HZ’s head off the ground and smashed it back against the slush covered tarmac.
The HZ didn’t show a glimmer of the pain it must have felt and it opened its mouth wide to show us its stump of a tongue – it had been cut off long ago, the stump completely healed. It closed its mouth and grinned. I roared as I bent down and slammed the bade of my knife between the HZ’s eyes.
Entry Thirty
Misfit drove as fast as the snow would allow, through the harbour, along Tontine Street and up Dover Road. Dover Road was long and fairly steep and all the vehicles struggled in the virgin snow, especially the bikes. Near the very top of the road, Misfit stopped the car outside the drive to Clay’s place. There were many lumps and bumps where snow had settled over the bodies of the zombies me and Clay had killed the day of the car crash.
‘The van’s not here,’ said Misfit. ‘There aren’t even any tyre tracks. They never made it.’
I heard a bang on my window and snapped my head around to see Shane standing beside the car, his palms against the window. He stood back as I opened my door and I climbed out, my feet crunching on the snow. ‘Is this the place?’ he asked. ‘Is this where they were headed?’
‘Yes, just up there.’ I pointed to the bungalow at the end of the drive.
‘
Well, where’s the van?’ asked Shane, turning his head in all directions.
‘
It never got here by the looks of it.’
Sam trudged through the snow to stand beside his older brother. ‘Where’s my mum?’ he said. ‘Where are they all?’
I watched Clay climb out of the back of the car and run through the snow, up the drive to the house, leaving a trail of footprints. He returned a few moments later. ‘The place is definitely empty,’ he said, having felt the need to check even though the absence of the van and the lack of footprints leading to the house meant the only way they could be inside was if they had floated there. But I resisted the temptation to mention it – it wasn’t really the time for sarcasm. ‘Misfit’s right. They never got here.’
‘
Mum? Mum! Char!’ Sam yelled into the cold sky, tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘MUM!’
‘
I’m going to tear that bastard to pieces if he’s so much as laid a finger on my family,’ said Shane as he placed an arm around Sam’s shoulders.
‘
Where the fuck are they?’ said Sam. ‘We need to do something. We have to find them. We’re wasting time!’
‘
We’ll find them,’ said Chris sitting astride his bike. ‘We’ll search this whole bloody town until we do.’
‘
OK. Everyone back in the cars,’ I said. ‘We’ll head the way they should have come from the supermarket… see if we can find anything.’
We spotted the van on the main road between the supermarket and Clay’s place. It lay on its left side, its windscreen and side window smashed, its right side crumpled by a series of dents. The bodies of two HZs lay upfront, red blood staining the snow from what looked like bullet holes in their chests. The body of another HZ lay on the snow by the upturned belly of the van, a pool of red around its head.
Misfit stopped the car and we climbed out. As I raced to the back of the van, I heard the sound of car doors opening behind me and the bike engines dying, and Sam and Shane tore around the back to join me ahead of the others.
One of the van’s back doors lay open. ‘Is anyone …’ Sam didn’t finish and he didn’t step forward to look. We all knew if anyone was in the back, they would be dead. I crouched down and peered inside, while everyone gathered behind me. I saw the body of an HZ, its head split open, but other than that, and the supplies that had spilled out of bags, the van was empty.
I stood and turned, and faced the others. ‘Just a dead HZ.’
‘
Well, at least they’ve been able to fight back. That’s a good sign,’ said Chris.
‘
But where the shitting fuck are they?’ said Shane, pushing past me to bend down and peer into the back of the van. ‘Where’s my family?’ He stood up and pounded the door with his fist, denting the metal. Sam stood with a thousand yard stare, his face as pale as the trodden snow beneath his feet.
‘
We’ll find them,’ said Soph, stepping forwards to place a hand on Shane’s arm.
‘
They’ve left tracks,’ said Misfit, nodding to the road where the snow had been trodden by many feet alongside the van’s tyre tracks, leading back towards the supermarket.
‘
Yeah, cos following tracks really worked out well last time, didn’t it?’ said Sean. Kay thumped him in the arm.
‘
What choice do we have?’ I said, looking at Sean.
‘
None at all,’ he replied. ‘Well, come on, Ray Mears,’ he said, turning to Misfit. ‘Let’s track some wild beasts.’
Back in the cars and with Kay, Sean, Soph and Chris on their bikes, we drove past the van, the wheels bumping over the body of one of the HZs as we followed the footprints. At the mini roundabout, the van’s tyres curved round to the left, from where it had driven up from the supermarket. But the trail of footprints carried on over the roundabout, clearly visible in the snow. We followed them until we came to another roundabout where they turned to the left, avoiding the road that carried on down to the gridlocked motorway. As we passed it, I could hardly tell one car from another beneath the blanket of white that covered their rooftops.
We drove down a wide road, one side gridlocked by cars heading for the motorway during the initial outbreak. At the end of the road, the tracks turned to the left into a main road that would eventually lead to Folkestone Central and, beyond that, the town centre. But we didn’t have to go that far because the tracks left the road and turned into the car park of what looked like some sort of sports club. The front section was a wide, squat single story building constructed of brown brick. Jutting out from the back and out to the left of the front section stood a large structure with an arched roof and a glass front, screened with blue blinds. The rear section made me think of a public swimming pool.
Misfit pulled up in the car park – we were expected after all. We climbed out of our vehicles and gathered outside the glass double doors clutching our weapons. This was it. This was the end.
Entry Thirty-One
I tried the door handle. As I expected, one side of the double doors opened and I stepped inside. The others followed.
‘Nobody rush in until we know where the others are and what the set up is,’ I said, glancing back over my shoulder. ‘OK?’ I added, glaring at Sam and Shane. I waited until they both nodded.
From somewhere in the building I could hear muffled cries, grunts and whoops. It sounded to me like some chimps were having a shindig with some warthogs.
To my right was an open door, revealing enough of the gloomy room beyond for me to see chairs and tables and the edge of a bar, leading down to big glass doors and windows at the end of the room. Misfit and Shane slid past me and edged along the door and peered inside. ‘Empty,’ said Shane, turning to the rest of us.
Ahead of me was another set of double doors. I walked forwards and pushed the right side door, the sound of the chimp/hog party growing louder, though still muffled. With my knees trembling and my heart pounding, I stepped into a corridor, rose pink carpet tiles on the floor and troughs of artificial flowers on the left side. Green felt noticeboards lined the walls above the flower displays. But there was something else on those white painted walls, something that made me forget to breathe for a moment – red blood smeared the walls to the left and right, just like the reception area of Hotel Hell. The blood glistened in the light from the doorway and I feared whose it could be. In some places I could make out individual hand prints and the occasional smiley face, even a heart shape scrawled with a bloody finger.
I barely registered the fact that at its end the corridor branched off to the left and right. In my peripheral vision I saw Kay and Misfit dart off to scout ahead before falling back in line with me. I only had eyes for the glass doors directly ahead – the blood dripping down the inside of both doors and obscuring my view of the room beyond told me this was the way to go. Or – if I had any sense – not go and, instead, turn and run from.
I mean, the people we’d come to save, they’d die one way or another in the zombie apocalypse, right? So why waste the limited amount of time we had left trying to save them just so they could end up dinner for the zombies or the play things of the next deranged human to come along? But I’m not blessed with that much sense … or cold calculated reasoning. So I edged my way to the door. With my knife gripped firmly in my sweaty right hand, I pulled a blood smeared door open with my free hand, the cries and whoops now clear to my ears.
Walking into the room reminded me of walking in late to a school assembly – if I’d gone to school in Hell. I found myself in a large space that I recognised as a rink for playing indoor bowls. Green felt covered the floor, looking like the top of an enormous snooker table. To the left and right, large windows were drawn with pale blue blinds making the wide, open room gloomy and seeming smaller than it was. The low, tiled ceiling increased the sense of claustrophobia.
A group of around fifty or so HZs had formed a circle around something in the centre of the room. They whooped and shrieked like betters watching a dog fight and their bodies blocked my view of what they watched.
Some of the HZs fell silent once they became aware of our presence and they stared at us with hungry eyes. More HZs followed suit, the ones with their backs to us turning to see what their comrades were looking at. In the descending hush, the circle parted to reveal seven HZs crouching around something on the floor – something that they tore at with their hands and teeth. The crouching HZs were the last to acknowledge our presence in the room. They rose, turning to face us, their chins dripping with blood. I could now see whose blood decorated the walls in the corridor – Amy, what remained of her. She lay on her back, her stomach and chest ripped open. Her insides spewed onto the floor. Bite marks covered her arms and legs and I could see the white of the bones in her left forearm.
One of the HZs that had been tearing at her body when we arrived lifted a hand and within it I could see something wet and squidgy and glistening. I may have only just scraped through Biology GCSE but even I could identify the organ – Amy’s heart. I fought the urge to throw up. Charlotte wasn’t so lucky and I heard her retch beside me. In my peripheral vision, I saw her bend double, but I didn’t take my wide eyes off the monsters before me. The HZ lifted Amy’s heart to its mouth and took a bite, eyeing me like a cocky kid tucking into a stolen apple in front of the greengrocer. The rest of the HZs erupted once more into grunts and whoops.
‘
Enough!’ The booming voice came from further back in the room. The HZs immediately fell silent and moved back towards the windows on either side of the room. As they parted I saw a masked figure, a black, feather covered cape covering his blood smeared chest – Marco.
Behind him, lined up against the orange pine wood wall at the back of the room, I could see Kelly, her children, Flick, Sara, Dolly and Derek on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs, their mouths gagged. Their sagging shoulders shook with disgust and fear. Flick’s left eye was swollen and showed signs of a purple bruise forming, while Kelly’s gag was stained red – injuries sustained while defending the group against the HZs, I guessed.
Ella had managed to wiggle herself so she nestled into her mum’s legs, her head against Kelly’s stomach. Jay huddled against Kelly’s other side, while Char did her best to shield the little boy with her trembling body. Only Sara knelt perfectly still, her eyes glazed and staring off into the distance.
‘
Mum!’ said Shane and he darted forwards, swinging his baseball bat.
Marco put his hand out to halt him but Shane didn’t stop. An HZ leapt forwards and punched Shane in the jaw, knocking him to the floor on his back. The other HZs began shrieking and whooping, hoping for a fight no doubt, but Marco raised his hand higher.
‘Enough!’ he said again as Shane rose to his feet but didn’t attempt to move forwards. The HZs fell silent once more, leaving only the sounds of whimpering and sobbing from the captives behind Marco. ‘It has been less than a straight forward journey but I can finally welcome you all into my family,’ he continued, addressing me and the others as he pulled off his mask. When I saw the familiar wide grin that revealed a set of Hollywood teeth, and the sparkling, eager eyes beneath a frame of slicked back black hair, I had the feeling Marco had removed one mask to reveal another.
‘
Fuck you and hand over our people,’ said Kay, holding her chainsaw in front of her body.
‘
I can’t do that,’ said Marco. ‘But what
I
want is for you to hand over your weapons.’
‘
Yeah, well, we’re not going to do that, fucktard,’ said Kay.
Marco took a breath and smiled at Kay, the sort of forced, persevering smile a person gives to someone they can’t get away with punching. ‘I know you must think I’m a monster but when you begin to understand what I am trying to do, you will learn to trust my methods,’ he said.
‘And what are you trying to do?’ I asked. ‘Aside from turn human beings into homicidal maniacs.’
‘
I have
saved
these souls,’ said Marco, opening his arms out to the HZs either side of him. ‘I am a servant of God, dedicated to ridding the earth of humanity as is His will.’
‘
You what?’ said Kay. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
‘
I understand you will find this hard to believe at first,’ said Marco, his smile never leaving his face. ‘But a few weeks before the outbreak I had a vision. I witnessed God declare that he had given up on humankind; that because of their wickedness they were no longer fit to walk the earth – an earth they were destroying through greed and selfishness. He had come to view them as rats, pests, parasites. He saw Humanity as a virus. Something to be stamped out. And so he proposed to send the dead to walk among them, to wipe out humanity and put an end to their wicked virus.
‘
When the zombie apocalypse fell, I knew God’s punishment had begun and I realised I had been chosen to preserve what life I could by ridding as many as I could of their humanity. By consuming the flesh of the guilty, my Saved renounce their humanity.’
‘
I can’t believe what I’m hearing,’ I said out the side of my mouth to Misfit.
‘
Nut job,’ Misfit said back to me under his breath.
‘
I can save every one of you,’ Marco continued. ‘But you have to want to be saved.’
‘
Save us? Like you saved my sister?’ spat Sean as he edged forwards towards Marco. ‘You twisted her mind so she barely recognised me.’
‘
Silence!’ said Marco.
‘
You turned her into a murderer, how did that save her? How’s that not
wicked
?’ continued Sean.
‘
Silence!’
‘
You’re one fucked up son of a bitch, Marco.’ Sean stopped and turned to the HZs. ‘Can’t you see this arsehole’s lying to you? He’s filled your heads with shit about visions and God. None of it even makes any sense. He’s the fucking evil one!’
‘
Humanity is evil! God has declared it. Those that can rid themselves of their humanity will be spared His wrath and will inherit the earth. When humanity is wiped out, the plague will be lifted and the zombies will be sent back to Hell, together with the souls of all those who did not repent,’ said Marco. ‘You can all avoid this fate if you are willing to admit that you are evil. I can save you – all of you. But first you must hand over your weapons so that we can talk as friends.’
‘
You do know that’s never going to happen, don’t you,’ I said, running my finger along the edge of my knife blade.
Marco’s eyes bore into mine and he grinned at me. Then, as though a thought had suddenly struck him, he turned and ran his eyes along the row of captives along the back wall. He strutted over to them, bent down and hauled Sara up onto her feet. Flick did her best to cry out despite her gag and began crawling on her knees after Marco as he led Sara back to the spot where he had previously been standing. An HZ leapt forwards and struck Flick across the face and she fell to her side against the wood panelled wall.
Marco pulled a short bladed knife from his belt and held it to Sara’s throat. ‘Noooooo!’ I said, stepping forwards. ‘Please, don’t.’
‘
Hand over your weapons or she’ll be the first to die.’
‘
OK. OK,’ I said, holding my knife out in front of my body.
‘
Place it on the ground before me and step back,’ said Marco. Glaring at him, I strode forwards, HZs on either side, to about a metre in front of Marco. I bent down and placed my knife on the ground. I pulled my hammer from my belt and laid it down next to my knife and stepped slowly back, keeping my eyes on Marco. ‘Very good. I’m proud of you,’ he said. ‘The rest of you do the same.’
‘
Nobody gets these babies,’ said Clay, raising his gloved hands.
‘
Just do it,’ I growled at him.
‘
This isn’t right, Sophie,’ said Kay. ‘We can’t just give in to this freak.’
‘
Right now we don’t have any choice,’ I said.
Kay gritted her teeth, stepped forwards and placed her chainsaw next to my weapons. She went to step back but Marco said, ‘Now, now –
all
of your weapons.’
Kay rolled her eyes and pulled the axe from her belt before tossing it down to the ground. One by one the others did the same, until the ten of us stood weaponless in a room full of bloodthirsty psychopaths. I didn’t feel altogether confident right then.
‘God has declared that humanity is a sin,’ said Marco, keeping his blade to Sara’s throat while HZs rushed towards our discarded weapons. The lucky ones held their prizes to their chests like kids fighting over manky toys at the local church playgroup, before they moved back to the sides of the room. ‘A sin punishable by death. To be saved, the first step is to admit that sin so that sin can be cast off.’ Marco released Sara and with his left hand he pulled the gag from her mouth down so it hung around her neck. ‘Do you admit you are a sinner?’ he asked her. Sara stepped back, wanting to shrink away and, for the first time since we arrived, I saw her eyes widen as though with fear. Marco grabbed Sara’s elbow and held her to him. ‘Admit you are a sinner!’
‘
No. Wait, you don’t understand,’ I said, darting forwards. An HZ rushed me and punched me in the jaw. I fell hard onto the floor on my back, the wind knocked out of me.
‘
Let her silence be a lesson to the rest of you,’ said Marco. ‘She refuses to repent her sin!’
‘
NOOOOOOOO!’ I shouted. I tried to stand but the HZ that knock me over put a filthy bare foot on my chest and held me to the floor. I saw Misfit and Kay step forwards but HZs sprang at them. One held a knife to Misfit’s throat. Flick strained against her bonds at the far end of the room as she struggled to crawl forwards on her side towards Marco.
Marco pulled Sara around so she stood in front of his body. With his left hand gripping her elbow, he raised his knife. She didn’t struggle as he drew it across her throat in a swift movement. Red blood spurted from the wound, turning a deep red, almost black, as it splattered on the green felt floor. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets and a gargling sound escaped her lips as her legs sagged beneath her. But she managed to remain on her feet.