Those Who Remain (Book 2) Read online

  People nod. Roger sighs.

  “Anyone else have an idea?” Ma asks, scanning the room. “It's good to have options, and Danny's plan isn't guaranteed to work.”

  “Can we negotiate?” Felicity says, for the first time ever suggesting anything during a meeting. I was almost sure she was daydreaming the whole time. “Maybe give them food?”

  “This is not about food.” The professor places his hand over the briefcase. Does he have clean underwear inside? He clings to it like his life depends on it. “He wants control over the territory and recruits to enlarge his forces.”

  Ma puts my plan to a vote, and it wins by a large margin. Of course, it does; it requires minimum effort from them. They enjoy plans other people will need to carry out, far away from them.

  Margaret, Roger and I are left with the task of catching zombies to send them against the militia. Since Red Star's already camped inside the community college, and may attack at any moment, we pass along an emergency backup plan. The rest of the town will be relocated inside the school, with the few guns we have, in case our sneak attack fails. Roger tells the wonder team to stay behind and help organize people, to place barbed wire on the doors and wood planks over the windows, and to gather lots of water and food. I have other plans for Ma.

  Before I leave, I take her to the side, away from prying ears. “If they do show up, and we don't come back in time. Ma… You take as many people you can in our van. The good people. The ones with zombie kills and who are smart. No zombie baits or redshirts. And you leave, okay?” I’m rambling madly, but it needs to be said. “Don't stay inside the school. Don't look back. Just leave. Go to the west coast, I don't know. Or head for the ocean, grab a boat and sail to the Caribbean. Like Dad wanted us to do. Zombies, beautiful beaches and sun? Come on, it doesn't fit. Maybe people are okay there.”

  She shakes her head with a smile. “You'll be fine, honey.”

  “Ma, please. Just promise me.”

  “Okay. I promise.”

  Her answer is too quick, too easily given. She's lying. I sigh. “And don't trust that professor, okay? He's fishy. He's hiding something inside that briefcase. I think it's probably a decapitated head or something. Maybe a zombie head, even. Which is way nastier.”

  She laughs, and I manage to crack a smile. It’s her turn to give me advice. “Oh, Danny. Please be safe. Don't try to be a hero, all right? Just come back home.”

  Ma gives me a long hug, and my grip is tighter than hers for the first time ever. I'm not even ashamed of it; I'm a mama's boy one-hundred percent.

  The four of us leave with little fanfare. Our uniform consists of duct tape around our lower arms, masks and plastic gloves. We bring pieces of raw meat, climbing rope, plastic bags, knives, hammers and one gun, which Roger carries. We can't afford to leave the town unprotected, and if our plan works we won't need more than one.

  We start our search by the woods. Margaret finds human tracks and leads us between the trees and bushes. Roger and I follow her, talking with low voices.

  “You don't like my plan,” I start, figuring it's better to let him come clean sooner, rather than later. “We can still try something else.”

  “It's not that, the plan… Well, we don't have much of a choice, I'll give you that.”

  “So? Why the long face?”

  “I don't know. Guess I don't like leaving the town. I feel like…” He sighs. “Well, I feel like this is my fault.”

  It kind of is, but I can't exactly say that to his face. He doesn’t deserve me pouring salt over the wound. My mind searches for an argument to make him feel better.

  “Hey… Shit happens.”

  Roger lets out a small laugh, shaking his head at me. “Yeah. I figured that. But thanks, Danny.”

  “If the plan works, they won't even set foot in Redwood. No harm done. I promise to forget the whole thing.”

  I’m aware of my flaws as much as he is, so the promise is more like a joke. We know the first second I’m pissed off, I'll throw his mistake back in his face. Although I try really hard not to, I’m kind of petty.

  “It doesn't feel right to have a zombie do my job.” He’s back to frowning. “Feels like I'm avoiding the problem.”

  “That's the point. You know facing them with a frontal assault is crazy, right?”

  He nods. Margaret finds a half-eaten deer carcass next to a ditch. No sign of zombies around, so we move on, which is good too, the smell alone almost had me gagging.

  The tracks take us deeper into the woods. I don’t like it. The more distance, the less time we have to head back. It’s going to be tight, and our chances are already slim as it is.

  I’m about to criticize Margaret’s slow pace, when she signals us to get down. A few bushes ahead, we spot our soon-to-be Trojan Horse. A group of four badly damaged zombies. One girl, three men. Limping around, their hands and faces are covered with guts and blood.

  We don’t need to talk to know what to do. After our big wave of zombies, everyone here realized the key was keeping the monsters separated. Roger takes the raw meat to the left; Margaret yells to the right. I take the ropes and the plastic bags. We know how to kill them with brutal efficiency, but problem is that here we need to catch them alive. I mean undead, or whatever.

  The little girl follows Margaret, but the three grown men are more interested in the meat. I pull a bag over the kid’s head, sealing it off with rope around her neck. I also bind her hands. One down, three to go.

  Roger manages to avoid being eaten by throwing the raw meat on the ground. I’m glad the zombies want to feed more than they want to bite us. Hooray for plain old animal hunger, instead of the classic brain-eating zombie.

  They gorge themselves. We don’t have much time until they finish off their meal, so while Roger grabs one and Margaret takes care of hers, I place my arm around the last one's neck.

  It’s hard to keep him still. He’s pretty strong for a dead guy, and I can’t break his neck or hurt him too much. I need him undamaged to carry out his mission. How much havoc could a zombie without arms really cause?

  Margaret ties Roger’s zombie using the same process I used to secure the girl.

  “Use double the ropes,” I say, pressing the creature against the ground using my weight. “Tight knots, we don’t want them to escape.”

  We end up tying them all together by the waist, so we can move them on a line toward the college. Carrying them would be too dangerous and probably leave us too tired.

  Our march could not be weirder. A sheriff herds four rotten bodies around the forest. The zombies try to rip off the plastic covering their heads and struggle to break the bonds. They are all covered by dark lumps and swelled knots, fingertips black as night. Margaret follows them on the right side, to make sure they don’t escape. I stay at the rear, marveling at the scene. We have zombie pets now! Pretty cool, a bit disgusting too.

  To spend time, I name them in my head. Number one is Hungry Janitor, because he’s wearing janitor clothes (yes, not very original, I realize that) and is very thin, so thin his clothes are falling off. He’s probably the oldest one of the bunch and judging from his weight and lack of deer guts, he hasn’t eaten in a long time. The bite on his neck is old, full of pus and worms strung along his shoulders and arms. Gross.

  Number two is Creepy Girl. She’s creepy because she’s a kid and a zombie. Not all that original, but I’m not really looking for creativity here, just easy to remember. Her shoes are cool, but the rest of her is better forgotten. Her almost bald head is covered with a plastic bag now, but the strands of brownish hair cover her clothes, glued by a mixture of earth, mud and blood. She has no hands anymore, just a dangling mess of eaten meat. Half her right arm is gone. Her Bye-Bye Puppy T-shirt is barely visible under the filth.

  Three is Big Joe, because he looks like a Joe and is our biggest catch. I’m betting he’ll do a lot of damage before going down. While his jeans have more rips than a punk singer’s stage clothes, the rest of him is in
pretty good condition. Someone bit his arm, but not much else. I can almost picture the scene: young athletic hero-to-be tries to save a little girl, gets bitten, but still manages to bash the zombie in the head. They walk together, get lost in the forest, Joe turns and ends up almost eating the girl whole. Tragic, but just another day in the Zombie Apocalypse.

  The last one I decide to call The Godfather. He’s fat and wears a suit. His tie is blood red, literally. Somewhere along the road from proper human to zombie, he lost his shoes. His right sock has a big hole revealing nail-less rotten black toes.

  Snow falls again, spreading cold and slowing us down even more. Our little team of zombies doesn’t take to the wet ground thing all that well. They slip, fall, and we are forced to help them. The Godfather has it worse, without shoes his feet bury themselves in the snow every now and then and the wetness worsens his already lack of coordination.

  We reach the outskirts of the community college after the sun sets. The moon is large enough to give us some guidance, since we can’t risk using flashlights and revealing our presence.

  The group of buildings is connected by a yard and garden. We know Red Star’s gang made the Science building as their home, thanks to the trucks parked just outside it. Makes sense too, the lab might contain useful resources and the cafeteria would still offer some food. Their vehicles’ presence also proves Redwood is still safe. For now.

  We circle around it from a safe distance. Our four zombies need to work their magic without being noticed too soon. Our plan is to find where the militia sleeps and then let the slimy gross group loose. Margaret offers to scout the building first. She goes inside by a broken window on the first floor, quiet as a cat.

  We hide behind trees on the outskirts of the campus. The wait seems to go on forever and I get antsy by the second. I walk around in circles, stopping only to stare at the building for a minute or so. Our pets don’t like the sound. Even tied against a tree they squirm to reach me.

  I’m bored. One of the hardest things of the Zombie Apocalypse is how slow time passes. Every day I have to figure out some way of entertaining myself without relying on the generator’s powers. No movies, no music, no games to play. I do have bookshelves filled with good stories, of course, but I’ve already read everything twice.

  So, right now, I wish my phone still had batteries, so I could play some mindless idiotic game about clicking on fruits of the same color. I miss the Internet too. Seeing a movie, or reading a book, without proclaiming my love/hate online to other haters or fans just wasn’t the same. It’s lonely.

  “Where is she?” I ask. “Maybe she got caught.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  Any lingering doubts die inside my throat when we spot her moving crouched between the bushes on the patio. When she reaches us, Margaret’s out of breath, and sweaty, but unharmed.

  “They are using four classrooms to sleep. It’s perfect. We lock them after pushing the zombies inside. Let them do the damage. Hopefully they will bite enough people before the soldiers wake up.”

  I smile, a hand up. “Awesome. This is going to work! High five people.”

  Nobody high fives me. Damn.

  “How long until they go to sleep?” Roger asks.

  “Not really sure. They are eating in the cafeteria now. There are two guards on each entrance—back and front. We’ll need to kill one pair to get inside.”

  Roger nods, eyes on the building “I guess we don’t have any choice. We need to wait until they are all sleeping.”

  Great. More waiting. We all sit on the snow-covered grass, using the free time to rest our tired legs. Roger stays near the tree, guarding the zombies. Our breathing creates warm puffs of steam and I rub my gloved hands together for warmth.

  The moon is almost above us when we finally move. Margaret goes first. Neither Roger nor I are all that eager to kill human beings, so we stay with the zombies, waiting for the signal.

  I try my best to ignore the bodies of the sentries as we move in. The building is dark, damp and cold. The corridors are hard to navigate, and the zombies are too loud and clumsy. They bump against each other, against the walls and chairs scattered around. Margaret pushes our group forward, impatient.

  She tells us to stop with a hand sign when we hear snores coming from around the corner. Hunched and crouched, we approach the classroom. There’s a man sitting on a chair next to the door, keeping watch. He’s reading a porn magazine and has a hammer tattooed on his arm. Margaret doesn’t even flinch or look to us for guidance; she just strolls up to him.

  When he raises his head to see who’s approaching, she’s already in front of him. The hunting knife slashes his throat open, spilling blood on her white coat. I place a hand against my mouth to stop myself from gagging.

  She gives us thumbs up. Roger stares at her dumbfounded. I can’t even move.

  “Hey,” she whispers through clenched teeth. “Come on.”

  Without much care, she drags the dead body inside the room.

  The classroom has eight occupied bedrolls on the ground and chairs in piles around the windows. We herd one of our zombies inside, then start to untie it. The bag is lifted off last. We step back, rushing to close the door behind us. Roger and Margaret search for furniture to block the exit, while I press my ear against the door.

  Snores, heavy breathing... Then... Teeth ripping skin, but no screams. Not yet. We mount a pile of discarded chairs and desks in front of the door and leave. We repeat the process three more times. By the time Big Joe goes inside the last classroom screams already echo on the walls. We run back to the exit and are halfway out when we hear sounds of bullets.

  “Guys, I think we did.” I smile, as we leave the chaos behind. “I think we saved the town.”

  Margaret’s eyes widen, not in a gesture of awe, but fear. Something is behind me. The hairs on the back of my head stand.

  “Yeah, but who is going to save you?”

  I turn around. A man with a mullet, of all things, opens a broad grin, the barrel of his gun pointed directly at me. Four soldiers with tattoos and heavy weapons flank him. My own smile immediately goes from wide to really small to non-existent.

  “Hi, there.” He waves his gun, his smile revealing broken teeth. “Let’s take a stroll, shall we?”

  The Last One Out V

  December 17th, Thursday, 5 pm

  The scene around me is hardly new. A classroom full of people huddled together around a few oil lights and candles is a common sight to anyone who experienced the outbreak back home. No electric power, no help from the authorities, just survivors praying for the night to end and bring the hope of tomorrow.

  These people have it easy compared to what I had to endure before boarding an airplane to this country. Day after day squeezed in bomb shelters, hiding below, deep inside the underground—the only part left of Old London. We slept in deactivated tube trains, wrapped in blankets so as not to freeze to death. Back then I was with my brother. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, while my only concern was to stay alive another day. Things changed. Some, not so much.

  Lorraine watches the window, hugging herself. She is a fine woman who understands what is at stake here. Her son left to save the town, and she knows heroes tend to die. Rats and cockroaches survive even the harshest radioactive winters, while everything else burns. Her eyes are deep and full of fear, but she hides it well, like a good parent would.

  “I am sure he will return,” I say to her, receiving a small smile from her. “The plan was sound. And provided the least risk.”

  “Yes. That’s true.”

  Outside the window, the little town of Redwood appears to be home of only ghosts now. Everyone chose the protection of the school, all classrooms are filled with famished and scared people. I watched as Lorraine and a few others organised each group, instructing, equipping and feeding the needy. Doors were blocked with desks and cabinets. Windows were barred with wooden planks. Their supplies were placed inside
the old administration office with padlocks.

  All useless gestures. Red Star’s gang merely needs to threaten a child and all obstacles will be conquered. Yet, the precautions give people something to do, and the council seems aware of that.

  Now that the items on Lorraine’s list are finished, she has nothing to do but wait. And there is no greater pain than waiting for someone to come home; to appear from just around the corner, alive and well. That kind of torture can only be surpassed by the realisation the wait is over, and no one is coming.

  She closes her eyes when the sun sets in the horizon. A deep shadow spreads over the quaint little main street. I almost reach for her shoulder, but decide against it.

  “They are probably waiting for the group to sleep before unleashing the infected. It is still early.” My words sound hollow even to myself.

  I do not know why I feel the need to comfort this stranger. Perhaps it has something to do with being around normal people still capable of being normal. The pain, the hardships and horrors have yet to touch this little place, protected by its hardworking and well-intentioned citizens. They offer a bit of hope, a bit of illusion as well, mixed together.

  “Yes. You’re probably right.” Her smile closes. “It’s safer attacking during the night.” Lorraine sighs.

  “Perhaps we should talk about something else. To pass time?”

  She does not take her eyes off the window. “I can’t think of anything. I’m sorry.”

  “Well… Have you ever seen New London? Its skyscrapers with neon lights and huge screens flashing the news?”

  The mother shakes her head. “I think the furthest place I went from this town was Hank’s farm.”

  “That is quite a shame. It was a beautiful view, if you do not mind sleepless nights. Failing asleep with neon lights shining in your eyes is not as easy as it sounds.”

  My little joke manages to provoke a real smile. “We were supposed to travel to the Caribbean, you know. Tony wanted to see the beaches before he….” Her voice cracks, and she places a trembling hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s still hard to talk about my late husband. Sometimes.”