Swarm (Book 3)
Swarm III
By Alex South
Book Cover by Wayne M
Edited by John Stone
Table of Contents
Some people want to change. It wasn’t like that for Laura. Change had forced itself upon her — it had infected her friends while she slept. One by one, they had come for her. And one by one, she had killed them all.
Through Stacy, change offered Laura hope. The little girl spoke of a sister that could restore life.
Then came the catch. The bodies had to be frozen. And yet, in the house where she had killed them there were only two chest freezers — each big enough for only one corpse. She had four.
John was the exception. He had been infected, but not killed. Locked in the bathroom by Laura, and behind a makeshift barricade, his undead body would not decompose. He didn’t need to be preserved — at least according to Stacy.
That left four people: Dreadlocks, Jess, Duke and Elena. So it was that Laura had been forced to make a choice. She had become altered by the greatest agent of change, by the force that did its dirty work: damage.
…
Laura’s eyes were open. She was staring.
The two chest freezers stood in front of her. Two bodies were inside them. One in each.
“I’m hungry!” Stacy shouted – a small child tied to a chair.
Laura ignored her.
…
Zack gazed through the dirty windscreen, a baseball bat in his lap. Ahead, a row of houses stood on a straight country road, and his parents’ home lay in the middle of them – red brick, small. Plants crowded the roadside. The trees stood higher than anything else. Distant hills and far away fields sketched out the horizon.
The sun was low, its early morning light young and hopeful. He could see five zombies, most of them lying on the grass of the small front garden.
His whole body trembled. He nodded at the driver, Borys, and then gestured for him to approach. Borys moved his gaze to the road. The van trundled closer. Closer. Closer. Closer, so that the road, house and garden grew in the windscreen.
He forced himself to open the door and get out. The sky overhead, the openness of his position, the space behind him — it all weighed on him. He walked closer and waited. No response. He walked some more. One of them turned its head towards him, tearing its eyes away from the heavens.
Zack stopped.
It was a man, skinny with a protruding rib cage. Filthy skin. Like a wave, the reaction seemed to move through the other figures behind it. One by one they looked at him.
Eyes locked on Zack, the skinny male twisted onto its side and pushed into the ground, forcing itself up. The others began to make similar movements. All except one; a woman with a nightdress. She remained slumped against the house, showing no interest.
Zack did not move. He allowed the figures to come forwards. A child wearing patterned pyjamas. A woman, naked. A man, also naked.
And the skinny male — wearing only boxers. It was the closest and the first to find its feet. Zack watched it make uneven steps in his direction. It had a slight head start on those behind, but now the undead drifted towards Zack as one, their eyes searching for him, yearning for him.
A low wall stood between Zack and the garden. The skinny male came to it. Its legs hit the grey bricks and it fell forwards, landing clumsily on the other side. Zack waited as it got up, then began to back away — so as to keep a consistent distance between him and it.
The pounding of his heart marked each moment.
The zombies were out of the garden, and on the road – in a staggered line formation. This was it. Zack jumped to the side and gave the thumbs up to Borys. The engine sprang to life — Zack kept his gaze on the figures. A few seconds passed. The van entered his peripheral vision as a white blur, then passed him and sped onwards.
The skinny male’s eyes remained locked on Zack, seemingly oblivious to the oncoming vehicle.
Thud!
The body moved onto the hood, and was pushed forwards, finally sliding off, hitting the asphalt and rolling a few times. The van ploughed on, hitting each of the group. The road ahead lay open. Zack ran. As he approached his parents’ house, he tried to see how much damage Borys had delivered. He saw movement — a zombie slowly squirming on the road. And now another.
He jumped over the garden wall, his feet finding the soft grass of the garden. The female zombie remained slumped next to the front door, staring at her knees.
Just get inside.
Zack thought.
He rammed his hand in his pocket and pulled out the key. He glanced at her as he placed it in the lock— she did not stir. The slightly ajar door called for him. He lifted up his leg and kicked, revealing a dark corridor. A figure hurtled towards him – wide eyed with discoloured skin.
His mother.
Zack swung the bat. It knocked her head sideways as she slammed into his chest. He landed on his back. She fell beside him, then lunged. Her fingers brushed him as he rolled away. He climbed to his feet and sprinted back towards the road. She chased, her groans scratching the air behind him. The van reversed along the road, stopping directly in front of him. Borys opened the passenger door — shouting in Polish and gesturing frantically. Zack leapt over the wall and jumped in. Borys grabbed him and threw him over to the driver’s side. He heard the door slam. Looking back, he saw his mother hit the window.
For a while no one spoke. The force of the impact had knocked her back onto the ground. She scrambled up and thudded the glass with dirty palms. Her hair was thick and tangled, her eyes were piercing. The skin of her face looked like bleached leather. Some of the other zombies were slowly finding their feet, whilst the rest remained still or squirmed on the road. Borys burst into a manic stream of Polish while he looked back at Dawid, the wide-eyed kid sitting in the seat behind. Next to Dawid sat his mother, Alicja.
“What should we do?” the kid said, translating on behalf of Borys.
Zack’s hand was over his eyes. He heard himself speak. His words seemed devoid of meaning — as if they were just hollow noises.
“Run her over. Kill her.”
His message was relayed in Polish. Borys and Zack swapped places. Borys looked over his shoulder and began to reverse. Outside, Zack’s mother fell into the space where the vehicle had been. Borys kept backing up. She leapt up and gave chase. Borys stopped the van, changed gear and accelerated. Zack closed his eyes. He heard a few seconds of engine noise, then a large thud.
“Is she dead?” Zack asked.
Some back and forth Polish.
“No,” said Dawid.
Zack felt his head tingle. Pins and needles coursed through his hands. Nausea rose from his gut.
Not now,
he thought.
…
Laura felt so dizzy. So tired. She took a moment to lean on the kitchen counter. A strange metallic taste lingered in her mouth. It had been there a while, barely noticeable at first, but then stronger and stronger. Perhaps she was dying. Part of her found the idea comforting.
She knelt down, opened the cupboard under the kitchen sink and, without looking, put her hand inside. She felt around a bit before settling on one object in particular. It was there! Poppy’s bike lock! She closed her eyes and put both hands in the cupboard. She needed it to be unlocked, otherwise her plan was ruined. It came open in her hands. Relief flooded her. Carefully, she pulled it out and held it behind her back. She couldn’t allow herself to see the code. That fucking bitch would come looking for it.
…
Laura re-entered the basement, instantly hit by a glare of contempt from Stacy. Laura walked towards her. She stood behind the chair that the little girl was tied to.
“What are you doing to me?” said Stacy, her tone a strange mixture of sadness and hatred.
Laura did not reply. She looped the bike lock a few times around Stacy’s neck and locked it. Without looking, she reordered its four digits randomly.
“If you kill me, or do anything bad, I won’t tell you the code,” said Laura, “and you’ll never get it off.” It wasn’t much. But Laura hoped it was uncomfortable enough that the possibility of being stuck with it would scare Stacy, “Are your powers back yet?” Laura asked.
“Yes,” said Stacy quietly.
“So… get rid of them,” she said, thinking of the zombies that surrounded the house. Laura knew that Stacy had made them come. To get rid of them, she needed her help.
Stacy closed her eyes. A little while later she opened them and looked at Laura.
“Have you done it?” said Laura,
Stacy nodded, and frowned at the floor.
At that moment, the metallic taste became so strong it began to hurt. She stumbled slightly. Her vision became fussy and distant. An uncomfortable warmth emanated from her stomach, passing over her whole body. She lost consciousness before she hit the floor.
Zack’s eyes opened. He saw sky, vast and open, looking down on him through the window a few inches from his face. It was replaced by green blurs — treetops rushing overhead.
He looked at his body. He was lying horizontally on the van’s back seats, and across the laps of Alicja and Dawid. Alicja glanced at him, surprised, and spoke to the others.
Zack sat upright. “What happened?”
The response came first from Borys, and then via Dawid, “You had an epileptic fit.”
Zack was silent for a few seconds before speaking, “We’ve gotta go back.”
Dawid translated. Zack waited for someone to respond but was met with a long silence.
“We’ve gotta go back!” Zack said, louder this time.
Borys spoke, but no translation came. Zack reached forward and took hold of Borys’ shoulder. The car suddenly became loud as Borys and Alicja started shouting. Alicja pulled at him.
Zack slumped back onto his seat, overcome with frustration. He couldn’t save his family without these people.
“Dawid, I need them to go back.”
“They’re mad at you.”
“Yeah… I know. I get it. I didn’t tell them. That was bad. But my family are in that house. They didn’t do anything wrong. So can you get them to turn back? Tell them I’m sorry.”
Dawid switched languages. Borys’ response came quickly.
“He says that you didn’t help them, so now they won’t help you,” said Dawid.
“I helped you!” he shouted at Borys, now turning to Dawid, “I helped him. Come on! We have to go back!”
Dawid passed it on. Borys let loose another stream of angry words.
…
Stacy watched as Laura hit the ground. It made her so angry that Laura had the special magic.
Laura was horrible! Laura should be dead!
Worst of all it was her own fault. She had chosen to help Laura’s stomach get better – which she would never normally do. She had been a stupid girl, and when she had stopped being a stupid girl, it was too late. Laura had gotten it inside her. And now that it was inside her, it felt weird. Maybe it liked Laura more, Stacy thought. That wasn’t fair. It belonged to her! She had it first!
She understood all these things in the same way that she understood most things: without knowing how she knew or where the information was coming from exactly.
She closed her eyes and began to look in Laura’s head – shifting through the colours and patterns. A few moments later Stacy saw the truth. The code wasn’t there. Her eyes opened. Laura had never known! Laura couldn’t take off the bike lock even if she wanted to! It was a lie! A nasty lie!
Stacy closed her eyes again and now felt very clever and excited. Yes, Laura had told her to get rid of the zombies, but she had kept two back. Controlling a lot of them at once was too difficult anyway. As she focused, her senses extended. Suddenly she was seeing what they were seeing — the outside of the house. Sunny and nice. Better than this horrible basement. She felt their bodies, big and strong. Picking one of them, she moved it around the side of the house and up to a drain pipe. It was metal which she knew meant it was strong. She checked to see which zombie was less heavy. It seemed like the one she had moved. It felt less strong. And it was not as tall.
She made it climb up. It had very good hands. Slowly, very slowly, the top drew closer until she was pulling its body onto the roof, but now she was very tired. And Stacy was sure her magic was going to run out soon. She didn’t know if she could get the other one up there. After thinking about it very hard, Stacy told the second zombie to leave. If it got half way up the drainpipe and fell down, and she couldn’t control it anymore, it might start making noises that were too loud. And she wouldn’t have any magic left to tell it to shut up. And that would spoil the surprise! She had to save her magic anyway.
…
Laura’s eyes opened. She stared at the naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Her eyes flicked to Stacy who looked down at her with a blank expression.
Her memory came rushing back. She leapt up and glanced around the room. An intense sensation rushed through her stomach. Instinctively, she pulled up her jumper. The wound looked so much better now, impossibly so. She looked at Stacy.
“What…” she trailed off. “You did this.”
Stacy shook her head. A thought came to Laura. What if a zombie had got in whilst she’d been unconscious? She walked behind Stacy so that her back wasn’t facing the basement’s entrance. She took hold of Stacy’s hair and pulled, stretching her neck back and making her look at the ceiling.
“What did you do?”
“Argh! Stop it!”
“What did you do?!”
“Owwwwww.”
“You made me unconscious, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t me. It was your tummy.”
Laura let go of her hair. Her thoughts span. Maybe it was true. It could be her stomach wound, or that she hadn’t eaten for days. How long had she been out? She took hold of Stacy’s hair again.
“Why did it happen?”
“There’s something in your tummy!” Stacy shouted.
Laura stayed quiet. Her ears strained against the hum of the chest freezers. Seconds turned to minutes. Laura remained rooted to the spot.
All the choices before her were bad. She hated being here, with her dead friends and the little monster somehow dressed in the skin of a child. She hated each moment she wasn’t out there, trying to save them. But in here, at least, there were walls. Out there was an endless landscape, a million places from which hate could spawn.
All she really wanted was to give up.
And yet there was a voice. A voice that had got her this far. A voice that had got her to put Duke and Dreadlocks in the freezer. A voice that said she could save them both, and John too — locked away upstairs, infected, empty, his groans drifting through corridors.
“Don’t fuck with me. Don’t you fuck with me,” said Laura.
…
Laura looked at her watch, roughly an hour had passed since she had told Stacy to take control of the zombies outside the house and make them leave.
“How far away are they?” said Laura.
“Miles away.”
“What’s a… how long is a mile?” Laura asked, unable to trust a child’s perception of distance.
“Ummm… A really, really far way.”
“… Keep them moving. I don’t want them to ever stop. Never. They can walk away forever.”
The girl nodded.
“If you try anything, I’ll hurt you. If you kill me, you won’t get that thing off your neck. Never.”
As Laura spoke, an invisible force was in motion. Too far away from her, from the bricks of the basement, from the dust, from the house. Too far to affect anything in her small bubble.
It began higher than the landscape. It began above the grass, above the fields, the hills. It began in the clouds, traceable by water vapour. Shifting. Swirling. Pulling together.
A change was occurring. Imperceptible. Nascent. But deep within it lay the tremors of something more.