Solstice: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse (18 page)

“Sounds like a plan,” Stu said.

Tana nudged him playfully. “Dirty.”

George stopped. “I forgot the wrench.” He jogged stiffly back toward the bulk tank.

“You and Josh go on,” Stu told Tana. “He doesn’t have a gun with him.”

A sharp howl rose over the already screaming wind.

“Hurry, Stu! They’re coming,” Tana cried.

Ripping the gun from his coat pocket, Stu sprinted toward George.

George apparently hadn’t heard anything over the wind. He reappeared from behind the tank. “Found it!” Smiling, he held up the wrench.

At least a dozen spindly, jerking shapes appeared from the alleyway.

“Oh, shit,” Stu said. “George, hurry!”

George glanced back, his smile dissolving into a look of complete terror. He started running just as the Ragers swarmed the parking area. Stu fired on the first one, a middle-aged woman dressed in a dowdy nightgown and no shoes. Her hair was wound up in big, plastic curlers, part of it coming uncoiled and hanging crazily in her face. On her heels, a younger woman and man, both wearing KFC uniforms, hissed and shrieked as they ran. Blood stained their clothes and faces like spilled chocolate.

Behind them came Brett, looking decidedly dead. He grinned and dashed after George, immediately overtaking the man and bringing him down like a load of crumbling bricks. From the loading dock, Josh called his friend’s name, sorrow coloring his voice.

Stu fired on the KFC kids, taking off the top of the girl’s head just above her eyebrows. Dark blood rained down, painting the snow-covered pavement. She fell, and her co-worker stumbled over her motionless body.

Brett ripped away George’s hood, exposing his face to the wind and snow. And his sharp, bloody teeth. Using the wrench as a weapon, the old man thrashed at Brett’s face, rocking the teenager’s head back and then to the side. Brett’s colorless eyes glowed like silver in the darkness, then rolled back. He closed them, and for a moment, he let go of George’s parka.

Shoving the boy aside, George climbed to his knees. Cautiously, Stu moved closer.
That’s not Brett.
He fired, hitting his former student’s shoulder and tearing it open.

“No!” Josh shouted. “Don’t, Mr. McCarthy.”

Rolling onto his side, Brett sprang to his feet. He launched himself at George with a hard football tackle. George’s head smacked the pavement with the dull sound of a watermelon striking the ground. Stu aimed, ready to fire, but hesitated. Brett had placed George’s dazed form between himself and Stu.

Other flailing, screaming bodies poured into the parking area. Josh began firing indiscriminately, but his random shooting was better than the careful aim of most people. They were dropping quickly, and most weren’t getting back up.

George struggled in Brett’s thick arms, but he was no match for the boy’s muscular frame. He grabbed George’s gray hair and yanked the man’s head to the side.

“Leave me,” George rasped.

Brett laughed deep in his throat, his white eyes on Stu. “Come on, Teacher!” he snarled.

Stu moved closer, unsure of what to do. If he fired, he would surely kill George. Brett sank his teeth into the curve between George’s neck and shoulder, tearing away a thick hunk of flesh. Then, he climbed to his feet, hoisting George up with him.

Stu saw an opening and fired again. The bullet sent Brett reeling backward, causing him to relinquish his hold on George. George fled toward Stu, his hand pressed over the running wound at his shoulder. Stu wrapped his arm around the older man’s waist and led him back toward the supermarket. Tana slipped her arm around George from the other side, and the three of them stumbled up the stairs as Josh continued firing.

They made it through the door with George and collapsed to the floor. An alarming amount of blood covered George’s shirt and pants. It had soaked his parka and the heavy canvas coat lay on him like a wet blanket.

“Come on, Josh,” Stu shouted.

Through the open door, he could see that Brett had moved up the stairs and stood in front of Josh.

“Go on, Josh,” Brett said. He smiled, revealing bloody teeth. “Leave me again, you chickenshit.”

“There’s a first-aid kit in the locker in the office,” George said. His normally strong voice had no weight behind it, and his face had gone the color of old paper. “Stu, get that kid inside before he gets himself killed.”

Stu climbed to his feet, stepped out outside, and grabbed Josh’s shoulder. “Leave him. It’s not Brett anymore. You know that.”

Josh shrugged away from him. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered to his old friend.

“Are you?” Brett sneered. “Think about what you did to me. Big hero. Tough guy. Why don’t you tell Mr. McCarthy about our sleepovers? Tell him how you loved the way I—”

“Shut up!” Josh screamed.

“How does it feel, knowing you left me to be eaten by monsters?” He ripped at his blood-stiffened sweatshirt and raised it, exposing his torso. Bite marks covered his chest, but worse, his stomach had been hollowed out. He moved closer, into the bar of light pouring from the open door. His spine glinted, white bone against the dark, dried flesh.

“How are you alive?” Josh whispered.

“Alive? You think I’m alive? Do I look alive?” Brett laughed. “This is beyond life. I don’t dwell in darkness. I
am
the darkness. I’m more than either of you could ever be. Mr. McCarthy, do you ever think about what you did to me? Does it matter? Of course it doesn’t. I’m not your kid. I was just some kid from class. Coward. Weak—”

“You need to shut the hell up,” Stu said. He pushed Josh aside.

“No.
You
shut up. Guess what, Stu? Your precious little girl has probably become food for someone just like me. Someone—maybe your ex-wife, maybe your mother, or even a neighbor—has devoured your little girl. I wonder if she cried for you, Stu. But you weren’t there. You left her, just like you left me.”

Stu couldn’t stand to hear any more. He couldn’t allow those kinds of thoughts into his mind. He raised the rifle and shot Brett in the face, sending him flying backward off the stairs onto the ice-covered pavement. Brett lay on his back, his feet and hands twitching slightly, a wet hole where his handsome face was only a moment earlier.

Howling, Josh dropped his gun and sank to his knees. He wrapped his arms around his head and covered his eyes. Stu stood for a moment longer, in disbelief over what he had just done. Then, he returned to his senses. At least twenty more Ragers were approaching, cackling madly and running in their screwed-up herky-jerky motions.

Stu grabbed the shoulder of Josh’s coat and hauled him to his feet. He shoved him into the market more roughly than he meant to, and the boy stumbled and fell, sprawling on his belly. Stu dove inside after him, making a jarring landing on his ass. He kicked the door closed behind him and locked it against the screaming, pounding Ragers.

January 2

Chapter 27

London, England

Tana slipped into Stu’s tent with a bottle of wine and a portable DVD player. The flick was
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
, which pleased Stu immensely. He had been a Python nut since college, and he hoped the mindless hilarity might ease his mind for a while. After two glasses of wine, he began to wonder if the surviving Pythons were reborn as Ragers. Or any other well-known people, for that matter—the president of the United States, the Prince of Wales, professional football players, actors, rock stars. Everyone in the world fell into one of three categories—survivor, Rager, or truly deceased. Fame and money no longer mattered.

They’d lost track of day and night, and Stu suggested they try splitting up the time, just to keep some semblance of normality. None of them had a clue what time it really was. If they lost their sense of reason, they wouldn’t survive. They’d also started making good use of the exercise equipment in the store—weights, a jogging trampoline, and a stationary bike. Plus, there was a driving net and golf clubs. Stu was positive he’d gained a good amount of yardage on his long game.

They’d been able to pick up the Zombie Radio X sporadically. The broadcasts were becoming a bit more comforting, even to Tana. She had even started talking about joining Stu at Sanctuary.

“I’ve let Aidan go,” she’d told him after lovemaking. Then, she dressed quickly and went back to the tent she shared with Davis, leaving Stu both optimistic and scared as hell. What if they made back to the States and things were… awful? Could he cope with the loss of a child as bravely as Tana had?

They’d locked George in the supervisor’s office. The old man had lost so much blood, it was amazing he’d survived. Quickly following being cleaned and bandaged, he’d fallen into a coma-like sleep, but before he drifted off, he told Stu, “Don’t kill me yet, Stu. Wait to see how it happens. You’ll need to know.”

Stu checked on him every few hours, but the outlook was gloomy, at least according to the radio broadcasts. Intimate contact was the only way to spread the infection, and a bite was about as intimate as one could get.

It had been twenty-four hours since George had been attacked. He had woken, his skin sallow, his demeanor poor. He was no longer kind old George. It broke Stu’s heart, but he didn’t have the heart to end things just yet.

But it was inevitable.

In the meantime, Josh had grown despondent. It was a frightening thing to watch a vibrant young man spiral downward. He was spending so much time alone that Stu felt the needed to watch him constantly. Stu had taken Josh’s gun and put it into the locker with the other firearms and ammo. He and Tana were the only ones who held the keys.

Of course, the store was filled with all sorts of other hazards a suicidal person might want to get his or her hands on—rope, insecticide, drain opener, razors. Living inside a supermarket was proving to be a much more dangerous place than Stu had first imagined. Something terrible was waiting in the wings, and he wasn’t sure how to stop it. Talking to the kid wasn’t working, and he couldn’t tether himself to Josh’s side.

Or could he?

Chapter 28

Coquelles, France

Tomas had been behind the wheel for almost twelve hours. He drank juice and energy drinks stolen from roadside gas stations, but Melanie knew the lack of sleep and the constant stress of watching for Ragers was wearing him down. She’d offered to drive, but he assured her he was fine and that he would sleep once they reached Dover. Melanie hesitated to ask exactly how he expected to get across the channel. Chances of finding another ferry operator alive and willing to carry them across were non-existent. Of course, those were the very same chances they’d had of finding one back in Gothenburg, and things had worked out fine.

Normally, the drive from central Germany to the northern coast of France should have taken less than eight hours, but the icy roads made driving tricky. Melanie couldn’t remember how many times they’d stopped for gasoline, and each time they stopped, Tomas grumbled about the terrible mileage the Rover was getting. He was becoming quite adroit at stealing petrol from the stalled vehicles, but that didn’t make stopping on the deserted village roads any less stressful. Shivering, Melanie would hold the gun in one hand, watching the darkness for those strange, jerky movements. Bo had become a real asset. Of course, the dog had always been a good watchdog. He would stand on the end of his lead, ears pricked, staring into the shadows, seeing and hearing things only he could.

They stuck to the rural routes, avoiding the larger towns and cities. Even from the solitude of the country, they could see fires blazing in the distance, igniting the black sky.

“Are they celebrating?” Christopher asked. The little boy wasn’t aware of the date, and only assumed it was still Christmas. He wasn’t alone. Without sunrise to break up the day, Melanie had to count the hours back to Solstice. She wasn’t sure she was anywhere close; she’d owned only one watch in her life and had seldom worn it. Her phone was her watch, so when everything went to hell, so did her sense of time. Tomas wore a wristwatch, a gift from Melanie’s father, so he was better able to keep up with how many days had passed since Solstice, and how many were left until they needed to reach Sanctuary.

They stopped in Coquelles, France. Melanie had visited the coastal town with her parents the year before their deaths and had fallen in love with it. The salt air was pure, not as fishy as the air that permeated Stockholm and Gothenburg. She and her father had climbed to the top of the Calais lighthouse where they could see the white cliffs of Dover shimmering on the horizon.

In such complete darkness, she couldn’t make out exactly where they were. The buildings were unrecognizable, with rooflines impossible to make out and signs obscured by shadow. She hated the darkness, and thinking of her time on the shore with her parents made her long for sunshine. How she had loved the heat of the sun on her bare arms and warming the top of her head.

***

“Grab a couple of those baskets and fill them with what you think we’ll need. But stay close. It’s impossible to be sure there’s nothing hiding in the dark,” Tomas said.

That was the understatement of the decade, but Melanie followed him inside the pharmacy. He had Christopher nestled on one arm and the handgun in his other hand. He’d already gone in ahead to check things out, before coming back out for Melanie, Leila, and Christopher. Leila snatched the flashlight from his hand as she vanished inside the little market, humming some eerie tune under her breath. The light bobbed ahead of her, ghostly in the dense blackness.

“Wait, Leila, we need—” Tomas started.

“I need to do some shopping, my dear,” she interrupted, her tone suddenly so relaxed it made Melanie’s scalp prickle.

Tomas glanced back, met Melanie’s troubled gaze and shrugged.

She touched his arm and pressed her face to his ear. “She’s losing it, Tomas. She’ll put us in danger.” Melanie had studied the effect in her courses at the university—the mechanism buried deep with the psyche that helped a person cope with dreadful situations. It was similar to the denial one faced when diagnosed with a terminal disease.