“It’ll be ready in ten minutes,” she said, turning to the stove and stirring the pot so she didn’t have to look at him.
“Excellent.” He went back to the living room.
Lucy looked at me and whispered, “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” What chance did we have against two armed Special Forces soldiers? If we tried to run, they would shoot us. As far as they were concerned, we were dead out here anyway. They wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. If we went with them, we would be trapped in a military-run camp with hundreds of other survivors. A concentration of people like that would be too big an attraction for the zombies to ignore.
One thing I knew: the camp would mean death for us all.
We had to take our chances surviving on our own wits. If a steady diet of zombie movies and books had taught me anything, they had taught me that the military and the government were fallible. Eventually, they would get everyone killed either through ignorance or through over-confidence in their own abilities. I didn’t want to get killed just because some organization made a fatal mistake while my life was in their hands.
If I was going to die, it would be on my own terms.
I went over to the key hooks where we had found the house keys. Hanging there was a set of keys with a leather Land Rover key tag attached to them. I took them from the hook and placed them in my back pocket.
Lucy saw what I was doing and nodded.
I nodded back.
The keys were a secret shared between us.
We were getting out of here.
six
The meal tasted good. The tomato sauce was infused with garlic, peppers and herbs and Lucy found some cheese in the fridge which we melted on the pasta. The kitchen was filled with the aroma of Italian sauce. As the six of us sat around the table eating, we were silent. The only sound was the rain hitting the roof and windows.
I was hungry and the food helped curb the gnawing in my belly. I didn’t want to talk, I needed to think. How were we going to get away from the soldiers while we had the chance? Only Lucy and I knew about the Land Rover keys in my pocket. I wanted to tell Mike and Elena but there was no way I could do that without Brand and Cartwright overhearing.
When we were all done, every scrap of pasta had been eaten. Brand pushed his chair back and stood up. He looked at Cartwright. “Right, we need to get these civvies to the checkpoint.”
Cartwright nodded and wiped tomato sauce from his lips with a napkin.
“We’re OK as we are, man,” Mike said.
Brand sighed. “I already had this conversation with your friend here. You’re civilians. You have to go to the Survivors Camp. Leave fighting the zombies to us big boys.”
“Maybe we’ll be safe there,” Elena said.
“See, your girlfriend’s got some sense. Now, let’s go.”
My mind raced for a way to escape. We couldn’t just make a run for it, we’d have no chance. Brand would gun us down before we reached the back door.
We all stood solemnly, like prisoners of war about to be taken for execution.
After we had our jackets and rucksacks on, Brand looked us over.
“It’s about a mile to the main road,” he said, “so stick with us. Don’t get any ideas about running away because I will kill you. If you’re not going to the camp, you’re just another nasty as far as I’m concerned. Cartwright, have a look out of the window and see if any of our dead friends have come back.”
Cartwright went into the living room and glanced out. “Just rain and mountains out there.”
Brand nodded. “You lead the way and I’ll bring up the rear.”
Going over to the front door, Cartwright unlocked it and stepped out onto the porch.
And all hell broke loose.
He took two steps over the threshold, rifle pointed ahead of him, and was about to step from the covered porch into the rain when a shape lunged out from beside the door. Cartwright turned, his face a mask of surprise.
The shape was a zombie. A hiker dressed in hiking gear and with a backpack slung over his shoulders. He roared as he stepped towards Cartwright, his arms outstretched.
Cartwright spun on his heels, firing point blank into the zombie’s head. Blood and brains blew over the porch and the hiker dropped backward.
But as soon as he fell, four more took his place.
Two old women, one of them dressed in a white bathrobe which fell open as she lurched forward, showing me more of her blue mottled flesh than I wanted to see, and two young men who looked like they were farmers judging by their beards and flannel shirts, fell onto Cartwright, dragging him across the porch by his boot.
Brand jumped out through the doorway and started firing in three-round bursts, his teeth gritted as he took aim and fired. His training made his movements almost automatic.
He grabbed Cartwright’s jacket and pulled him back inside.
“Shut the door!” he shouted. “There are more of them out there!”
Mike slammed the door shut and locked it.
“They were out there waiting for us,” Brand said, shocked. “They were fucking waiting for us!”
Cartwright sat propped against the stairs. Blood oozed from his calf. He stared at the floor as if in a trance.
Brand saw the wound and cursed. He tore a strip of fabric from Cartwright’s torn combat trousers and tied it above the wound. “It’s gonna be OK, Dave,” he muttered. “It’s gonna be OK.”
“They bit me,” Cartwright said simply. “I got bit. It hurts.”
A heavy thump sounded against the front door.
Then another.
A barrage of banging assaulted the flimsy wood. It sounded like they were throwing their bodies at the door, trying to break in.
Brand stood and wrenched the door open, sending a spray of bullets out through the doorway. Two more zombies fell. Behind them, at least a dozen more clawed at Brand. He fired into the mass of rotting flesh, his roar of anger louder than the sound of the assault rifle as it spat bullets.
He closed the door again, leaning his back against it, breathing hard.
The banging started again.
Cartwright’s eyes were closed, his head drooping.
Brand looked at his companion and something inside him seemed to snap. He pulled the door open again and began firing.
I took the others into the kitchen. “We need to get out of here. Brand is going to get us all killed.”
In the doorway, Brand was kicking and screaming at the zombies, sending hailstorms of bullets into their rotted flesh.
A movement at the foot of the stairs caught my attention. Cartwright twitched, raised his head. His skin had changed and taken on a blue hue. The veins in his neck and face stood out like dark purple gnarled branches. His eyes were yellow, his glare hateful.
I tried to shout out to Brand but it was too late. Cartwright was on him, pushing the soldier out onto the porch even as he sunk his teeth into his neck.
Brand screamed.
His rifle clattered to the ground among the shuffling feet of the zombies that surrounded him.
They pulled him down, hungry mouths gnashing, nails clawing.
Some of them looked in our direction, left their prey and stumbled forward into the house.
We ran to the back door and unlocked it. It opened onto a grassy area beside the house. It looked empty. The only sound was the hissing of the rain.
Mike went out first. He turned towards the back of the house.
“No,” I said. “The Land Rover. I’ve got the keys.” I dug into my back pocket and grabbed them.
Mike changed direction and headed for the front of the house. We followed. My brain screamed at me to run away from the zombies but if we really wanted to escape, we needed the vehicle. Running blindly into the mountains would only get us into more trouble. If we had the Land Rover, we could travel faster and we had some protection.