Thirteen Roses Book Four: Alone: A Paranormal Zombie Saga (11 page)

‘There are forty two of us who want to go.’ She glanced around, eyes narrowed. ‘Forty two true believers out of a hundred. I struggle to believe the church allow that many to be so lax in their worship.’

‘They don’t understand.’ He stepped closer to her, feeling her breath on his neck. She didn’t step away and he raised enough lip to show her some teeth. ‘They aren’t true believers, because they don’t understand the majesty of God. They don’t know he’s there, they only think he is. Until they know, they’ll never believe.’

She nodded vehemently, hands clasped together. ‘I think we’ve chosen the right person to go into partnership with.’

He let the partnership comment pass. It was fine, if she wanted to think that. She’d soon learn who the boss was. She was a believer but she didn’t see her place in the plan. None of them did, because none of them saw the big picture.
 

‘We need a safe house for fifty people, somewhere close enough to the hospital supplies in case we need them. I’m going to charge the other devices. When I get back I want you to be ready and have found a place. Understand?’

Her face creased slightly but smoothed just as quickly. Perhaps she was just beginning to see who was in charge here. She nodded. ‘We’ll be ready.’

‘Good.’ For a moment he thought about kissing her, but he wouldn’t stop at that. He settled for an arm on her shoulder. She didn’t flinch away and he took that as a good sign. He stomped out the room and jogged down to reception. He’d got even fitter in the last week than he’d been before. The constant moving and fighting and running had toned the bits he might not have bothered with, and the last four days of sleep had got him rested.
 

He plucked the device from the drawer, shoved it in his pocket with the other two, and turned to go. Bayleigh and Alex stepped out from where they’d been hiding and stood in front of the stairs.
 

‘Hi, Jackson. Tell me, exactly, what you’ve been doing for the last two hours.’

Luke

The piece of metal hit him like a truck. He was utterly unprepared, which was the only thing that saved his life. The human body can withstand a massive impact, so long as it’s relaxed enough, and he was as relaxed as he could be, considering the circumstances. He flew like he hadn’t in the three weeks since he’d come to Earth, and hit the concrete shoulder first. Something gave way, like his ankle had in the cavern, then he rolled, gravel spitting up against his visor as his helmet bashed against the floor.
 

He slid the last few feet and shredded the skin off his hands. He lay still as warmth flooded in. He tried to lift his head, but nothing worked. Even his hands, wet with blood, refused to move. He rolled onto his side, getting there through a series of puppy-weak pushes with his good arm. The pain in his shoulder flared like someone had stabbed him and he blacked out.
 

He came back seconds later, blinking furiously. The warmth still lapped at him and he couldn’t breathe. He tried to take his helmet off but his bad shoulder refused to budge, so he flipped the visor up with one hand and sucked in air. Smoke flooded his lungs and he burst out coughing, rolling onto his front. Saliva dripped onto the tarmac as his hacking got worse and worse. Tears streamed down his face.
 

Forehead pressed into the ground, he pushed himself to his knees. He stared across the tarmac and saw flames and pieces of debris before he scrunched his eyes shut against the smoke. Hands grabbed him and he tried to shake the zombie off. It was going to bite him. He was going to die because of a damned explosion, He couldn’t die here, not like this, it—

‘Stop it, bloody stop it and get up. Come on.’

Krystal’s voice, low and rough and coarse, was like a choir, and he stopped struggling, head still resting on the concrete. But she was still pulling at him. Why was she pulling at him? He needed sleep, not movement.

‘Get up get up get up.’ She thumped him on the back and he roused himself enough to understand that they needed to move, quickly. She put a hand beneath his right shoulder and he screamed, blushing at the sound.

‘Other side, other side.’ He didn’t sound like himself. He sounded like he’d been smoking forty a day for a few hundred years, but she understood. She grabbed his left arm and shoulder and heaved, and he tried his best to join in. He gained his feet and together they weaved a few steps until the smoke thinned. Her hands went away and he swayed, opening his eyes fully.
 

They were beside a car and Krystal opened the passenger door. She half turned back when a figure lunged from the car, hands clutching at her. She tripped over herself, into him, and they tumbled to the concrete. The zombie lurched straight past and took a moment to turn and face them.
 

Krystal awkwardly drew her sword, elbow digging into his stomach, and held it before her. The zombie came at them and she shifted, grinding his ankle into the floor where she sat on it. He suppressed the groan of pain, focusing on the creature.
 

It fell on them, but Krystal had the sword ready and it entered its mouth. The zombie kept coming and the blade erupted from the back of its head. Blood streamed down the blade and over Krystal’s hands as the zombie’s head oozed down it and thumped into her lap.
 

They were still for a second before Krystal shouted and shoved the zombie off, flailing at it until she could stand. Luke watched her, half-amused and half sickened by the dead creature. Krystal got control of herself and grabbed her sword. She put her foot on the zombie’s face and yanked the blade free, then wiped it on the creature’s clothing.
 

She tossed the sword in the open car door and returned to him. She hauled him upright and shoved him in the car. She slammed the door, raced around to the other side, and climbed in.
 

They sat for a moment, side by side, staring at the chaos in front of them. Then in unison they jumped and twisted in their seats to explore the back. There was nothing there and they turned back, letting out long breaths.
 

He still struggled to breathe and another pain made itself known, like someone was jabbing him in the chest with pins. He felt it gingerly and found a rib that sent sharp shards of pain through his body. He’d broken a rib. Probably. His observations had never gone as far as exploring wounds. He’d never had wounds.
 

He tried to ignore it, focusing instead on the wreckage before them. They faced the petrol station they had used before they went to the warehouse. Where the station had been was now a raging fire and the vague skeleton of the shop. The street around them was covered in pieces of blackened and twisted metal and in some places, the smoke was still too thick to see through.
 

The afternoon sunlight was strong and burned through the smoke, casting random, shifting shadows on the floor. He shifted in his seat and almost cried out as his shoulder turned. He slumped back and contented himself with turning his head to look at Krystal.
 

‘It blew up.’ It was as inane a comment as he could have made and he blushed. She nodded, eyes wide as she stared into the smoke.
 

‘Yeah. Wow.’

They sat in silence as Luke tried to organise his thoughts. There were things they needed to do. He had to work out how they were getting home, but every time he tried, he took a breath and the pain swamped him. After a few minutes, Krystal turned in her seat to look at him. Her nose was bloody and her face was covered in dust and dirt. He probably looked the same.
 

‘We need to get back to the hospital. Can you ride?’

She sounded so calm and so assured he almost burst into tears. He ground his teeth together. He hadn’t cried in thousands of years. Had he ever cried? All it took now was a broken rib and a bit of pride. He sniffed. Thousands of years of punishment and now he had the capacity to feel something other than delight in pain. He wasn’t sure how disappointed he was in himself. The Father told him he deserved this and at the time he’d thought it was punishment. Now, though…

He chuckled and shook his head at Krystal’s frown of confusion. ‘Sorry, there’s really nothing funny, just thinking about how nice it is to feel a broken rib.’

She prodded him in the chest and he gasped, eyes watering. ‘Yeah, looks nice. Can you ride?’

He groaned and shook his head. ‘Not yet. My shoulder’s gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘I don’t think it’s broken. I don’t know really. Maybe give it a day and it’ll be fine.’

Krystal nodded, turned to the front, and put her seat belt on. ‘You might want yours on, too. Ed was never very keen on my driving.’

Luke managed a smile and did his belt left handed, which was considerably more difficult that he expected. He was still struggling to plug it in when Krystal turned the key. The motor turned over a few times and stopped. She did it again and again and nothing happened.
 

‘Shit, dammit.’ She slammed the wheel with her hands, then shook one after she hit it too hard. ‘What now?’

Luke sighed and closed his eyes. They needed to get back, where were the bikes, he couldn’t ride anyway, he needed sleep, his ribs hurt so much, he…
 

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t do anything. He was useless and pathetic and he wished he had a steering wheel to slam his fists against too.
 

‘We need somewhere safe.’

He heard her as if from a distance. Then he heard the door slam and opened his eyes. The chair beside him was empty and he turned in his chair, hissing at the burst of pain. She was creeping across the road, away from the still-burning petrol station, sword out. He watched her, chest swelling again.
 

It wasn’t like he’d done anything. A few days of training and a pep talk and he was acting like he was her dad. Although, he thought he’d be a better dad than the one she’d told him about. It wouldn’t be difficult, but still, it was enough to make him smile.
 

Smoke drifted across the window, and when it dispersed she was out of sight. He gripped the sides of his chair and tried to take slow, shallow breaths. She’d be back in a moment, safe and sound.
 

He waited.

He was sweating, the chair behind his back hot and sticky. He longed to stand and walk around, but leaving the car was foolhardy. How long had she been gone? He knew it wasn’t as long as it felt, but still… He twisted in his seat and stared in the direction in which she’d gone. Where was she?

He squirmed, sweating harder now. She’d been got. The bastard things had got her. The tears stung his eyes again and he scrubbed at them with his left hand. This was pathetic. This was what the Father had done to him. Maybe Seph and Az were right. Maybe it was time for a change.
 

A thump on the window made him gasp in relief and he turned to watch her clamber in. But the face that leered through the glass wasn’t hers, and the yellow teeth that snapped shut again and again, made it quite clear what the zombie wanted. He shrunk in his seat, keeping as still as possible. It was pointless, of course. These things didn’t hunt through motion or any such rubbish. It saw him as surely as he saw it and it knew he was fresh meat, untainted like the crap it’d probably been eating for the last week.
 

What would happen when all the humans were killed? Would the zombies eventually die out, or would they keep eating one another until only one was left, one monstrously fat zombie ruling the world? The thought would have been funny except the zombie outside was pretty fat and he was banging on the window, hands curled to display the horrendous claw-like fingernails adorning them.
 

Why was he so scared?
 

He was injured. He had seen plenty of sick and wounded humans and, for the most part, they’d displayed an admirable if sickening sense of spirit and determination. Until this point, he hadn’t realised the courage they’d shown as well. But he was struggling to demonstrate anything except his ability to keep very still and pray for a sixteen year old girl to rescue him.
 

That
was
funny. Laughter burst out through his closed lips, making his stomach ache and driving pain through his chest and arms. The zombie banged harder, like it was an impatient customer at the drive-thru, greedy for burger and fries. He laughed harder, pain interspersing his laughter with whimpers.
 

The zombie was going to break the window. He stopped laughing. Suddenly it froze and slipped down the window. As the top of its head came into view, he saw the sword buried in it and sighed. He didn’t care about the shame, she was back, and he was deeply and absurdly grateful.
 

She shoved the zombie out of the way and climbed in. ‘Right, there’s a house across the street. I can’t see anything in there and the back door’s open. We can get across to it pretty easy. I met one zombie on the way over, but the smoke’s driving them away, so the time to go is now. You alright?’

He gave her a smile he knew was weak but hoped was convincing enough to reassure her. Either she didn’t notice the weakness or chose not to, because she jumped straight back out of the car and came around to his side. The door opened and she grabbed him, helping him pull himself out. They stood together, Krystal putting her shoulder beneath his. She’d made it sound like a short dash but there were a couple of hundred yards and an impromptu car park between it and them. He took a deep breath. He had to make it, he had no choice.
 

They set off, him hobbling along, her doing everything she could to make it easier for him. She shoved him along, keeping the pace up, and he was more relieved than he thought possible he’d brought her along today. Anyone else and he’d have been dead twice over by now.
 

They weaved between the cars, slamming knees and hips into them at regular intervals. Slowly but surely the house grew closer and with it came more and more pain. Every step he took sent shocks rushing from his shoulder out across his body, urged on by his rib.