41
Lou grabbed my hand and helped me to my feet. Stabs of pain coursed through
my leg, and a trickle of blood ran down my thigh. Despite the chaos around me,
the first thing I thought was
what if the nails on the baseball bat were
infected? I’m going to need a tetanus jab.
“Where’s Billy?” Lou said.
“He’s gone.”
“Motherfucker. As soon as things get tough.”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that, Lou. “
Lou and I joined the fight, as if there was an unspoken agreement
between us that any questions would have to wait. There was work to do before
we could celebrate. Men and women swung weapons with tiring arms, crying out as
they struck dead flesh. Slowly the groans of the infected faded away until they
were just a drone in the background. Only a handful remained. Hundreds of their
own had fallen to the floor, but still they lurched pathetically on until there
was only one left.
This one carried on walking, oblivious to the bodies of its own kind
that lay on the floor like sacks of meat. It moved its head from side to side
as if struggling to choose a person to go for. Finally it settled on Moe, and
it shifted its body in his direction and took stumbling steps toward him.
Moe lifted his meat cleaver and heaved it at the infected’s neck. As
the blade connected with flesh the infected’s head hung to the side and clung on
by a scrap of flesh. With one more swing Moe took its head clean off.
The fighters looked around them. Seeing no more infected left to kill,
they sunk to the ground. Some closed their eyes as if collapsing in exhaustion.
Others looked at the corpses around them with wide eyes as if they couldn’t
believe what they saw. A man put his hands to his face and wept into them in
huge uncontrollable sobs.
The adrenaline started to leave my body like air leaking from a sagging
party balloon. I wanted to collapse onto the floor and let my emotions tear out
of me, but I couldn’t afford to yet. The stalkers were gone and the infected
were dead, but there was still something left to do.
Moe stood twenty yards in front of me. He held his cleaver in the air
like a Viking warrior celebrating in front of his gods. His blade, once gleaming,
was smeared with blood which dripped off the end and fell onto his face.
I took a step forward. Lou put her hand on my shoulder.
“Steady on” she said.
I swept her hand off me. My heart pounded and my whole body shook. I
let long-buried feelings course through me. Images of Vasey, the stonework
stained with blood. Alice dying outside the tent and screaming because she knew
she was leaving Ben behind. I let the thoughts course through me and burn my
veins like acid.
I strode ten feet along the grass until I stood in front of Moe. He
turned round and looked at me, his face streak with blood like war paint.
“This is how it feels to be a god,” he said. “Breath it in, Kyle.”
Anger throbbed through my brain and put my teeth on edge.
“Where the hell were you when people were dying?”
Moe arched his eyebrows. “Surely you’ve figured it out by now, Kyle.”
I was in no mood to try and process Moe’s logic. I felt like the
rational part of my brain had slid away and fury washed over it like a tsunami.
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“It’s simple enough,” said Moe. “We waited for the others to die so
that Bleakholt could be ours. It belongs to us now, Kyle. I’s Vasey the Second.”
I gripped my knife tight in my hand.
“After all this, there’s still not a shred of humanity in you, is
there?”
Moe looked up at the sky as if pondering the question. He closed his
eyes and took a deep breath. Then he opened them, and stared at me.
“I think there is, sometimes. I hate those moments.”
Fury crashed through me. It channelled through my veins like a
rampaging river, overflowing the banks of reason and sending every part of my
body awash it. My hands shook, my chest contracted, my whole body was
electrified. But my mind was clear, and I knew what I had to do.
I stepped forward and put my hand gently on Moe’s shoulder. I looked
deep into his dark eyes and lifted my hand. Moe gasped at the last second as if
suddenly aware of what I was about to do. I jabbed my hand forward and buried my
knife deep into his belly, twisting it until his eyes flickered in pain.
Moe wheezed as the blade drilled into his guts. I pulled my knife away
and then stabbed him again, holding it in until his eyes dimmed and the last
breath left his body.
42
Ewan's bus and Billy’s quad bike were smoke trails in the distance. The
screams of hundreds of people, voices thick with pain, had died until they were
replaced by the wails of a dozen. I couldn’t see all of them. One man lay on
the floor with his hand on his bicep. He bit through the pain and squeezed
against the muscle, but he couldn’t stem the ooze of blood. A woman shrieked as
an infected crawled across the ground to her. It tried to bite through the top
of her head, coming away with strands of knotted hair in its mouth.
I tried to rise, but my legs felt like they were pressed to the ground
by unseen arms. The woman’s shriek sounded like a crow dying. It reminded me of
the time when I was testing my dad’s pellet gun and I’d shot a magpie. I heard
the flap of its wings as it fell from the tree, squawking as it hit the ground.
I’d walked to the tree to try and find the magpie and put it out of its misery with
a stamp to the head, but it had gone. Wherever it went, it went silently and full
of pain.
The woman was too far away to put her out of her misery. If I started doing
that now, where would I stop? Dozens of wounded people were strewn around the
now-red ground. Some were bitten, some were hurt more than others, but all of
them were dying. They would all become something else, in death, and then I’d
have no choice but to deal with them. My body was empty, my resolve gone like
oil leaked from a rusted engine. I couldn’t do it now. Not while they were
still living.
I rested my head against the floor and tuned out the sounds of the
dying. A few men stayed on their feet and dealt with the infected stragglers. The
groans of the creatures grew quieter with each swing of a hammer or a knife. The
battle was won. I knew that, but the knowledge didn’t fill me with joy. It left
me feeling empty. I watched a grey cloud slide sombrely across the sky like a
wispy funeral procession. I closed my eyes.
A boot crunched across the crusty grass. Was it one of them? Had a
stray infected spotted me, sized me up as the easy prey I was in my depleted
state? Did I have it in me to keep fighting? I opened my eyes.
“Guess you really are John McClane,” said a voice.
It was Lou. Blood was splattered over her t-shirt up to her collar
bone, over her chin and almost up to her forehead. Her face was flustered and
her eyes were hollow, all white and no pupil.
Charlie stood next to her, his stump wrapped in bandages. Blood seeped
through at the end and spread through the fabric like an ink stain. His face
was pale and covered with sweat. He shouldn’t have been on his feet.
“They’re all dead,” I said.
They were the only pathetic words I could churn out. We’d won. We’d
beaten the wave. Or the part of it that had gotten through, anyway. There could
only have been a thousand, maybe two, and that left the best part of half a
million still out there. They could wait.
Lou swallowed deep breaths. When she looked at me, there was something
in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in a while. Triumph, humanity. I didn’t know
what it was exactly. But it was something. There was a sense that we had
something to cling to.
“What now?” she said.
I thought about the decision that waited for us. Did we stay in
Bleakholt and try to pick up the pieces? Did we hit the road again? Would the
responsibility of it all fall on me? The weight of the decision pressed down on
my chest. That was another thing that was going to have to wait.
“Fucked if I know,” I said, and flopped back to the floor.
Charlie coughed, then started to speak. “I read all of Whittaker’s
research. Went through the bloody thing twenty times. I thought things through,
and I think there is a cure. Something we can do to end this –“
His voice carried on but the words stopped reaching my ears. I looked
around me at the bodies littered on the battlefield like upended bowling pins.
Infected hacked into pieces, men and women cold on the ground. Blood trickling
from bite-marks and melting the thin cracks of ice that covered the grass.
I thought of everyone we’d lost. Not just in the battle, but before.
Faizel. Victoria. Justin. Alice. A ripple of panic poured across my chest,
covered my lungs, and made each breath heavy. I had let Faizel and Alice down.
Victoria had never been my responsibility, but maybe I owed her more than I
gave. Justin wasn’t lost. There was still hope that he might be out there,
somewhere, but the hope seemed like a frayed thread ready to snap if I tugged
on it.
I knew I should get up, but I couldn’t. Not yet. I let my back melt
into the ground, let the feeling of loss wash over me like the lapping of the
current. A time would come where I had to do something, where I could make all
the losses count by finally ending this. Surely that, if anything, was worth
fighting for.
You made it to the end, so you either
really enjoyed Fear the Dead 3 or you’re one of those people who absolutely
refuses to give up on a book. Either way, thanks.
What should you do now?
You should
join other zombie fans on my newsletter list.
Here are 4 good reasons
why you should:
·
You’ll be the first to know when I
release a new book
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I like sending out free books as gifts
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All you need is your email address and then
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Q&A
With Author Jack Lewis
Q
:
What’s next for Fear the Dead?
A
:
Well you might have already guessed, but book 4 is
the next thing on the agenda in the Fear the Dead universe. Before that though
I have a couple of horror books coming out.
To find out what they are and when
they’re out, join my mailing list here:
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Q
:
I loved Fear the Dead. Do you mind if I tell everyone
I’ve ever met that they should read it?
A
:
No worries, go for it. While you’re at it, why not
leave a review on Amazon? More people will discover the book if you write a
review, and if they’re a fellow zombie lover they’ll appreciate it. Plus I read
all the reviews and I tell my mum about the good ones. Your feedback means a
lot to me.
Q:
How can I follow your writing?
A:
You must have read my mind, because that’s exactly what
I wanted you to ask.
To follow me on Twitter:
@jacklewiszombie
Send me an email:
[email protected]
Q:
Does it not seem weird to you that you wrote these
questions yourself?
A:
I’ve done weirder stuff, believe me.