‘It will be fine,’ Ashtat reassures Emma. ‘You survived on the streets for months, and that was without our help.’
‘But I didn’t move about this much,’ Emma says. ‘I only travelled short distances any time I left my base. And I kept to the shadows. We’ll be in full view of any watching zombies out here.’
‘That’s the best place to be,’ I chuckle, pointing at the hole in my chest. ‘When they see this, and some of our other wounds, they’ll know we’re undead. Seeing us in the mix, they’ll assume we’re all zombies. I mean, everyone knows that zombies and the living don’t get along, right?’
Emma licks her lips nervously. ‘If you’re sure . . .’
‘We are,’ Rage grunts and we move out of the park and on to the road.
Things go more smoothly than we anticipated. We’re attacked several times, but by individuals or small groups. And they only cause us any difficulties if they’re hiding behind cars and leap out at us suddenly as we approach. The rest – the ones lounging in buildings on either side of the road – are easy to deal with, as we see them coming from a long way off and have plenty of time to get ready for them.
‘This is too easy,’ Shane mutters as he rips another zombie’s brain from its skull then wipes his hand clean on the back of the dead creature’s shirt.
‘Don’t get cocky,’ I snap.
‘I’m not,’ he says. ‘I’m worried. When you have things this easy, it usually means you’re going to run into all kinds of trouble later.’
‘Don’t be a pessimist,’ Carl grunts, but I know he’s thinking the same thing. We all are, except maybe Rage. He’s the sort of guy who always expects a smooth ride, since he figures the world was made for him in the first place.
But despite our fears the big catastrophe fails to materialise. We aren’t attacked by gangs. We never need to break formation or run. We don’t end up trapped in a building with no way out.
In a weird way it’s an anti-climax. We were ready for fireworks, but we barely have to bloody our fists. Still, I guess that’s a good thing, if not for us, then definitely for Emma and Declan.
We run into a minor problem in Hammersmith. There’s a flyover we want to pass under, but the shaded area is packed with zombies. A few catch sight of us and get to their feet. For a second it looks like we’re in trouble. But then they spot the hole in my chest and the green moss growing from the cuts on some of the others. The zombies lie down again, not bothering to shuffle forward to investigate more closely, never realising that there are a couple of jokers in the pack.
We find another way around, making use of side roads, and arrive at our destination as the midday sun is burning bright in the sky. The humans are holed up in a block of offices. We pause outside the entrance and stare at the building. It still feels like we’ve had it too easy. I half-expect Mr Dowling and his mutants to come abseiling down.
Instead what happens is something almost as surprising, but nowhere near as alarming. Declan speaks for the first time since I’ve known him.
‘Doggy.’
All of us gawp at the normally silent boy. Emma’s face lights up and she hugs him, then starts to cry happily. Maybe she thought he would never speak again. But Declan ignores her tears. He’s looking at the road behind us and he points over her shoulder.
‘Doggy,’ he says again.
‘Bloody hell,’ Shane laughs. ‘He’s not wrong. Look.’
We slipped under a rising entry barrier on our way into the yard surrounding the building. Now when I look back, I spot a large, hairy sheepdog standing on the other side.
‘Isn’t it beautiful,’ Ashtat coos as I do a stunned double take. She drops to her knees and makes a clicking noise with her tongue and teeth. ‘Here, doggy.’
The dog ignores her. Its tail isn’t wagging. It’s staring at us.
The sheepdog is white at the front, turning to grey further back. Its hair is dirty and matted with dried bloodstains. The others are enchanted by it, not having seen a live dog since before the zombies rose up and killed them all for their brains. They join Ashtat in calling and whistling, trying to get it to come closer.
I’m less excited by the dog. In fact I’m seriously disturbed. When I was making my way to Timothy’s gallery after Rage had pushed me off the London Eye, I came across a dog just like this. It was resting in the road and ran off when I tried to get it to come. It had the same markings and stains as this one.
Maybe the dog followed me and has been trailing me ever since, but I doubt it. I would surely have seen it before if it had made its home close to County Hall. So what other explanations are there? Is it coincidence that our paths have crossed again? Or perhaps it’s a different dog that just looks the same?
I glance around, uneasy but not sure why. As Ashtat and the rest call to the dog and click their fingers, I suddenly shout at it, ‘Get out of here, you ugly mutt!’
The dog bolts and everyone glares at me.
‘What did you do that for?’ Ashtat cries.
‘I don’t like dogs,’ I lie.
‘Even so, you didn’t have to scare it off,’ Ashtat pouts. ‘I think we could have persuaded it to come to us. You could have simply stood back.’
‘There was blood on its fur,’ I improvise. ‘It might have been zombie blood. It could have infected Emma and Declan.’
Ashtat frowns and considers that. As she’s thinking it over, the door to the building opens behind us and someone calls out chirpily, ‘I knew that was B Smith even before I heard your voice. I recognised the smell.’
We whirl round. The others squint at the dark-skinned stranger on the steps, not sure what to make of his unexpected greeting. But he’s no stranger to me, and as he stands there smirking, I take a trembling step forward and croak his name with disbelief.
‘Vinyl?’
ELEVEN
Vinyl was my best friend back when I was a normal girl. We’d been friends since we were toddlers. Being a racist, my dad forbade me from having anything to do with black kids. But in that one instance I disobeyed him. I pretended to blank Vinyl, but I’d see him behind Dad’s back. I knew Dad would beat the crap out of me if he ever found out, but I liked Vinyl too much to drive him away.
Vinyl was brighter than the rest of us. He got upgraded to a better school when his mum made him sit a Mensa test and his potential was uncovered. I’m sure he would have stopped hanging out with me after another month or two, and that would have been the end of our friendship. But he was still one of the gang the day before the zombie attacks, when I last spoke to him on the phone.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I ask once we’re safely inside the building and the door has been locked.
‘I’m your guide,’ he says as if it’s the most ordinary thing in the world. ‘I’m here to lead you guys to New Kirkham. That’s the name of the compound.’
‘But how did you get here? How did you survive and end up doing a job like this?’
‘I’ll explain it all shortly,’ Vinyl says, cool as ever. ‘Come and meet the rest of the group first. We’re not moving out until morning, so we have all of the afternoon and night to chat.’
He leads us through to a massive atrium, nothing over our heads except the roof high above. You can see all of the floors from here, the offices set just behind the outer corridors.
Eight humans wait in the centre of the atrium, three men, two women, a couple of teenagers and a girl about Declan’s age. They look nervous. There are also a pair of Angels, Pearse and Conall, sitting slightly apart from the humans, playing cards. Rage hails the Angels and trots over to join their game.
‘Pearse and Conall came with me from New Kirkham,’ Vinyl says. ‘Dr Oystein likes us to team up with his Angels for operations like this.’
‘You know Dr Oystein?’ I ask, head still spinning.
‘Haven’t met him. Heard lots about him from Mr Burke.’
‘Burke?’ If the blood could drain from my face, it would.
Before
I can ask any more questions, we’re welcomed by the humans we’ve come to escort. They’re scared of us, that’s clear, but do their best to hide it. They invite us to eat with them, but Ashtat explains that we don’t need food.
The little girl asks Declan if he wants to play. He shakes his head and clings to his mum. Emma laughs and slots in with the other living people, telling Declan he has nothing to be afraid of, unconsciously turning her back on us and abandoning us for those more like herself, which is understandable.
The little girl pesters Declan, urging him to play with her. Vinyl smiles and whispers to me, ‘That’s Liz. She’s an orphan and hasn’t had any other children to play with for as long as she’s been with the group. I don’t think she’ll take no for an answer.’
As Liz keeps plugging away at a scared-looking Declan, some of the survivors take us on a tour of the building and tell us how they holed up here not long after the zombies attacked. They took on the undead with knives, heavy office equipment and crudely fashioned spears, fighting them for the right to call this place home.
Once they’ve shown us around, they leave us in the atrium and go to celebrate their final night here and ready themselves for the journey. I gather that a few of them would rather stay, but they voted and the majority were in favour of heading for pastures less confining.
Ashtat, Carl, Shane and Jakob join Rage and the other Angels. Vinyl and I slip away by ourselves and wind up in the canteen.
‘It’s been a long time,’ Vinyl notes softly, taking a chair and opening a bottle of orange juice.
‘Looks like it’s been longer for you than me,’ I grunt. I haven’t aged since my heart was ripped from my chest, but Vinyl looks about five years older. Life has taken its toll on him.
‘You look pretty much the way I remember you,’ Vinyl says. ‘Except for the obvious differences.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I say sweetly, smoothing back the wisps of moss which surround the hole where my heart used to be.
‘That’s got to hurt, hasn’t it?’ he asks.
‘Not as much as you’d think. We don’t feel pain the same way that we did when we were alive. It stings all the time, but I’m not in agony.’
Vinyl stares at me sadly.
‘Stuff your sympathy where the sun don’t shine,’ I snap. ‘I don’t need it and I sure as hell don’t want it.’
‘Death hasn’t mellowed you,’ Vinyl laughs.
‘Damn straight,’ I huff. ‘I’m grumpier than ever, and I have fangs now, so don’t get on the wrong side of me.’
Vinyl shakes his head happily. ‘I’ve missed you, B.’
‘I’ve missed you too,’ I mutter, then lean forward, but not too close, wary as I always am around the living, not wanting to accidentally infect him. ‘Any idea what happened to my mum and dad?’
Vinyl sighs. ‘No. I haven’t seen them. Sorry.’
‘Did your parents get out?’
‘No,’ he whispers and his jaw trembles slightly.
‘What about the old gang, Stagger Lee, Trev, Meths. Any of them make it?’
‘None that I know of.’ He shrugs. ‘But there are lots of compounds. People got scattered all over the place. How about you? Do you know anyone who survived?’
‘Only Mr Burke. And maybe Mrs Reed, kind of.’
I tell Vinyl about that last day in school, listing our friends who perished, at least those I can remember—I think I’ve forgotten one or two names, strange as that seems. I also tell him about the teachers who were killed, the students who got away with my dad, and how Mrs Reed became some sort of brain-eating cross between a zombie and a human.
‘You’re pulling my leg,’ he snorts.
‘I’m not.’
He scratches his head. ‘But if she wasn’t a proper zombie, what was she then?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about her in ages. I remember clocking it at the time, thinking it was weird, but too much has happened since for me to follow it up. Not that I could, even if I wanted to. I don’t know what happened to her, if she got out, where she might be.’
‘Maybe she’s still in our old school. She could be teaching zombies these days. B is for Brains,’ he says, mimicking her voice.
‘Don’t be an arse,’ I grin, but my smile fades as I tell him about Tyler Bayor and how I let my dad turn me into something even lower than a slug.
Vinyl is grim-faced when I finish. He looks at me harshly. ‘Tyler was solid,’ he says gruffly.
‘I know,’ I croak.
‘He didn’t deserve that.’
‘No.’
‘I warned you about what would happen, didn’t I? I said you had to stand up to your dad, that you’d turn out as bad as him if you didn’t.’
‘I don’t think you ever put it quite like that,’ I growl.
‘I came pretty damn close,’ he says. ‘The only thing that stopped me being that blunt was that I knew how angry you got when anyone said anything bad about your father.’
‘Yeah, well, that was before I saw him in all his glory. I’m not standing up for him now, am I?’
Vinyl frowns. ‘You really ran back into the school instead of leaving with him and going your own way later?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That was dumb, wasn’t it?’
I laugh and stretch out my right hand to knock knuckles. Then I remember that I’m a zombie who can’t touch him, and settle for a cheesy thumbs up.
TWELVE
I tell Vinyl about my life since I was killed. The bit he enjoys most is when I describe climbing the London Eye.
‘You really scaled it using just your hands?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Wicked.’
When I’m done, it’s Vinyl’s turn. He was at his new school the day of the attacks. By luck he was outside for a phys-ed class when the world went haywire. He fled with some of his classmates, then headed home. He couldn’t find his mum and dad.
‘So maybe they’re alive, in another compound,’ I suggest.
‘Nah,’ he says sadly. ‘I met a neighbour of ours a few months later. He saw them get killed. He said both were properly slaughtered, their brains ripped out, so at least I don’t have to worry about them stumbling around in a monstrous state.’
Vinyl survived that first night by locking himself into a bank vault.
‘You what?’ I hoot.
‘I figured a bank would be as safe a place as any,’ he grins. ‘The vaults are operated by time locks. As long as we could keep out the zombies until the vaults were due to shut, we could slip inside and they wouldn’t be able to get at us.’
‘You were always oozing with brains,’ I mutter.
‘Yeah, baby,’ he crows. ‘I’d be a prize scalp for one of your crowd.’
Vinyl found refuge in one of our local banks, spent that first night locked up nice and tight – he says he slept on a bed of banknotes that must have been worth a million pounds, but I think he’s making that bit up – then struck out for the countryside in the morning.
‘Most of the people in the bank stayed behind,’ he snorts. ‘They thought the army would rescue them. I figured there wasn’t a hope of that. When a city like London falls, there’s no quick recovery.’
Vinyl roughed it for a few weeks in the country, avoiding contact with anyone. Then he stumbled across one of the first compounds to be set up and threw in his lot with them.
‘It fell less than a week later,’ he sighs. ‘We underestimated the sheer bloody determination of the undead. They kept coming and coming. They wore us down, picked holes in our barriers, and next thing we knew they were swarming the place.’
He made it out with a few others and went looking for another compound. He found New Kirkham – though it didn’t have a name then – and he’s been there ever since, only leaving it at times like this, to guide other humans to sanctuary.
‘I got closely involved in the running of the place,’ he says. ‘Age doesn’t matter any more. Q
ualifications are irrelevant. It all boils down to what you know and how you operate under pressure. I’d learnt a lot of lessons from the collapse of the first compound and I was able to make suggestions to shore up our defences.’
‘So you’re a Big Chief now?’ I grin. ‘Power, a throne, a harem?’
‘Yeah,’ he deadpans. ‘A gold-rimmed toilet, caviar for breakfast, the works.’
The army rolled by a month or so after Vinyl had arrived in New Kirkham. They wanted to put their stamp on the place, but the residents were happy with things the way they were. They rejected the offer of help and have remained one of the few truly independent mainland compounds.
‘Were the soldiers pissed?’ I ask.
He shrugs. ‘They thought we were fools, but they left us in peace. Told us not to come crying to them when it all broke down. But so far it hasn’t.’
One day, out of the blue, Billy Burke came calling. He was with a group of survivors. He’d led them out of London with the help of a few Angels. The newcomers were accepted gratefully—there’s plenty of space in the compound, so the locals are happy to admit stragglers as long as they’re willing to toe the line and work hard.
‘Burke asked for volunteers to come back with the Angels and act as guides for future groups,’ Vinyl says. ‘A lot of the survivors in London don’t trust the Angels. They’re more likely to accept an invitation of help if someone living is involved.’
Not many people offered to become guides. Life was hard enough as it was. They faced assaults every night. They’d seen horrors in the towns and cities that they’d never forget. They were loath to return. Vinyl was one of the few who said he’d help.
‘Fancied yourself as a hero?’ I chuckle.
He pulls a face. ‘It just seemed like the right thing to do.’ I raise a mocking eyebrow and he sighs. ‘OK, the truth is, I’ve had really bad nightmares since I escaped. The sort where I piss myself and wake up screaming and shaking. I thought I might be able to stop the bad dreams if I confronted my fears.’