Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost (20 page)

‘I’m good. All good.’

‘Bloody fucktard,’ said Kay. ‘You won’t be much use if you don’t look after yourself.’

‘I won’t be any use here. I’m coming.’

The weather was grizzly. The previous evening’s storm had died down to be replaced by a persistent drizzle that had the threat of snow in it. We split up in two groups: Marsha, Clay and Charlotte in one team, and me, Misfit and Kay in the other. Searching unfamiliar territory for an unfamiliar girl in perilous conditions was enough to make anyone’s heart sink. Throw in the crappy weather and you have my mood.

‘You realise she could be anywhere,’ I said as we trekked through a muddy, overgrown field. ‘And who’s to say she won’t be as scared of a bunch of strangers as she is the zombies.’

‘Fair point,’ said Kay. ‘I guess we just need to work on looking approachable.’ We both turned to look at Misfit.

‘What?’ he said, his brow creased.

‘Look approachable,’ I said.

Misfit flashed his best approachable smile. I couldn’t help laughing at his effort.

‘What now?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘You look like you’re in pain.’

Misfit mock-scowled at me and we pressed on into the English countryside, through fields littered with the remains of cows, or maybe horses, and calling the name of a little girl we’d never met.

Despite walking for miles and calling her name repeatedly, all we attracted were zombies. I guessed none of them were actually called Amelia – though one or two could have been – and, instead, they were only interested in tasting our flesh rather than coming home to Mummy. We killed only those we had to kill in order to pass safely, to commit to full battle was to use energy we needed in order to travel a long distance across ground on foot.

I heard a growl and stopped, thinking it was a zombie, when, from behind a tree emerged a dog – a collie. It snarled at us, its eyes wild. Misfit raised his knife arm.

‘Stop!’ I said. ‘Don’t. It’s just scared.’

The skinny animal squared up to us, its body trembling. Its long black and white fur was matted with dirt and what might have been blood. Its ribs jutted out at painful angles and I wondered how its frail legs kept it up. I went down on my haunches and extended a hand towards it.

‘Hey, boy,’ I said, but the dog snarled, baring its sharp teeth. I crept forwards, all the while speaking soothing words, ‘Come here, boy. It’s OK, boy…’

‘Sophie, don’t,’ said Misfit.

‘He’s just scared,’ I said. ‘Scared and hungry. Do you have–’ But I didn’t get to finish as the dog leapt towards me, it’s teeth aiming for my throat. I fell back onto the wet ground and raised my arms in front of my face to protect myself, not wanting to use my knife against the poor animal. I shut my eyes and waited for the dog to hit me when I heard a yelp. I let a couple of seconds pass before opening my eyes. When I did, I saw Misfit pulling his knife from the dog’s head, its bedraggled body slumped before me.

‘You didn’t have to kill it!’ I said, staggering to my feet.

‘Yes I did,’ said Misfit, wiping the dog’s blood off his knife with the edge of his t-shirt.

‘It was just–’

‘Completely feral and starving and would have ripped your throat out, Sophie.’ Misfit finished for me.

I opened my mouth to retaliate but the fight flooded out of me. He was right. He had saved my life. We couldn’t even trust domestic animals anymore.

‘We should head back,’ Misfit said without another word on the matter. He handed me and Kay a cereal bar each from his shirt pocket. ‘We don’t want to be stuck out here in the dark.’

I looked at the cereal bar. After what had just happened, I thought it would stick in my throat, but, as I bit into it, I realised just how hungry I was and I devoured the thing in three bites. We hadn’t been organised enough to eat anything before we left that morning, which was stupid. We were running on empty.

‘I agree,’ I said, casting a final look at the dog’s corpse. ‘Let’s get back.’

We were in a wooded area, the place silent and still apart from the chirping and tweeting of the birds. The trees provided shelter from the drizzly rain but the ground was saturated from the previous day’s downpour and our feet squelched in muddy puddles that had soaked right through my already wrecked
Converse
. I made a mental note that I could do with a new pair next time we were near a town. Or maybe some leather boots would be better. It didn’t escape my attention that while the post-apocalypse world was full of clothing stores with goods for the taking, we were always in the same of grubby rags. A shopping trip was overdue.

‘This really is a losing battle,’ said Kay as we drudged back to the cottage. ‘And I don’t like to lose battles – I never lose battles.’

I tried my best not to let my heart sink right down to my ruined boots, but I failed in that matter. ‘You’re right, Kay, we’re not going to find her are we?’ I said. ‘There’s so much ground to cover. So many places she could hide. And that’s presuming she made it through the night.’

‘That poor woman,’ said Kay, shaking her head. She cast her eyes down to the soggy ground for a moment before glancing up at us. ‘Losing a kid is the worst.’

She looked away and stomped off ahead.

‘Maybe the others have had some luck,’ I said.

‘I doubt it,’ said Misfit as the two of us jogged on to keep up with Kay. ‘They’ve probably wasted as much time as we have.’

10pm

Misfit was right, the others had had no luck either. They arrived back to the cottage just after us at around 6pm. Marsha looked wiped out – too exhausted to even freak out about her missing daughter. The ordeal had left her looking empty and withdrawn.

We ate dinner. It was a meagre meal made up of some supplies me, Misfit and Kay picked up from the van on our way back. And it was a good job we did as Marsha had very little in the way of food. After we ate, Clay got his head down on the sofa. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone look so tired. He couldn’t keep his eyes open and he honestly looked like one of those shrunken heads you see in old horror movies, like all the vitality had been sucked out of him. He allowed himself a couple of hours sleep then, to the protestations of the rest of us apart from Marsha, he went out to look for Amelia on his own again. I hated him going out in the dark and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep again with worry.

January 24, 10pm

Clay crawled in at around 5.30am but was up and ready to go search again with the rest of us by 8am. The lack of sleep was taking its toll on him. His skin had a grey tinge to it and he had heavy circles under his eyes, but I also noticed his speech was slurred at times. I handed Clay a can of orange fizzy drink to give him an energy boost before setting off. He gulped it down and went to place the empty can on the kitchen table, only he misjudged the space, banged his knee into a chair and only managed to get the can half on the surface. It fell to the floor and rolled towards me, the last of the bright orange liquid leaking onto the pale wood laminate as it came to a stop.

‘I got it,’ I said.

I bent down to pick up the can and placed it on the table.

‘Thanks,’ said Clay, rubbing his eyes. ‘I’m not normally so clumsy.’

‘You need to rest more,’ said Charlotte. She finished off a cereal bar and drank from a water bottle.

‘I’m OK.’

‘No you’re not, Clay,’ I said. ‘You should stay and sleep.’

‘I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I’m OK. Honest.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK,’ I said with a shrug and the three of us headed out to join the others in the hallway.

‘I think we need to get the camper unstuck and back here ready for when we move on,’ said Misfit as he slung his backpack over his shoulder.

‘Good plan, mate,’ said Clay and he patted Misfit’s back. ‘I’ll come with you later on.’ I watched as he suppressed a yawn.

‘Well, I was thinking Sophie would come with me now,’ he said to Clay.

I was just about to confirm that I was happy to head off with Misfit – we hadn’t had any time alone for a while. Just to be with him, the two of us without the pressures of others’ company was something I jumped at the chance to have. But, mouth open, Clay cut me off, ‘It’s alright, mate, we can do it later. There’s no rush,’ and turning to me he added, ‘No offence, Soph, but it would be quicker with two guys.’

‘Meaning?’ I asked.

‘You know,’ said Clay. ‘Just we have more muscle power.’

‘I can hold my own!’ I snapped.

‘I know, it’s just–’

‘I can manage!’

‘I know. But–’

‘For fuck’s sake, Clay, why are you always butting in between me and Misfit?’ There, I’d said it. Shit…

Clay just looked at me open mouthed. ‘I’m just offering my help,’ he said. There was a pause as everyone shifted awkwardly in the confined space of the hallway. ‘It’s all I’ve ever done,’ he added after a moment.

‘I know,’ I said pathetically. ‘But it just seems to me you want Misfit to yourself. You’re always there.’

‘He’s my buddy, Soph.’ Clay glanced from me to Misfit. ‘He gets me.’ He looked back to me. ‘I never had a brother. I always wanted one.’ He glanced back at Misfit. ‘And now I do.’

I watched Misfit smile a lopsided smile and nod his head at Clay before I turned my eyes away to stare awkwardly at my feet.

‘Cheers, man,’ I heard Misfit say. ‘But I kind of got this with Soph, OK?’

‘Yeah. OK. No worries, like.’ I looked up to see Clay shrug his shoulders. ‘I just wanted to help.’

I was overcome by the urge to stick my tongue out at Clay but I held it in, aware that I had made myself look enough of a bitch already. No one protested any further, so Clay – with a little glare over his shoulder at me – headed off with Marsha, Kay and Charlotte while me and Misfit took the short walk back to the van.

We’d only had the camper a short while but it was good to see something familiar in all this unfamiliar greenery. I had to admit, I was missing Folkestone. I didn’t miss it in the way I missed places before the apocalypse. Back then, you’d miss a place because you missed the people you shared time with there, or the places you had fun at, or the warm, secure feeling of being at home amongst your own things and your own comfy bed. Folkestone had none of those things for me. Well, it sort of did. It had the St Andrews lot – but we never had any fun together. It had the camp by the Martello tower – but that only reminded me of people that I’d lost.

I missed Folkestone because I knew it. If I ever ran into trouble, I knew where to run, where I could find friends, how I could get back home. Even before the outbreak, everywhere had its problems, its no-go areas. But it’s a case of better the devil you know. In your own town, you know where/who to avoid so what might freak an outsider out, doesn’t bother you. Folkestone wasn’t my home town but it was the town I experienced the outbreak in. Zombies are everywhere but I’d got used to Folkestone’s layout, its possibilities and pitfalls in any given situation.

This place was just field after field and I didn’t like it.

We had to kill a few zombies before we could get to the van. One, the one I killed, wore a suit and tie. It looked quite good quality, well, in its day I’m guessing it would have fitted the man the zombie once was quite slickly. I wondered how come such a well dressed, city type ended up out here in the middle of nowhere. I slammed my hammer into the side of the zombie’s head. Its skull gave easily, more like bashing cardboard than bone.

Misfit opened the back doors of the van and nodded for me to get inside.

‘Um, don’t I need to be out here to push?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that the idea?’

‘No, dumb arse, that isn’t the idea at all. Get in the van.’

‘Huh?’

‘You and me alone in the back of a van, that’s the idea, Sophie.’

‘Misfit, there’s a missing child!’

‘Just get in.’

‘It doesn’t feel right…’

‘Just get in.’

I shrugged and climbed inside, crawling across the folded out futons that blocked what would be a walkway if they had been folded back into sofas. I sat in the middle of the bed and watched as Misfit climbed in behind me and shut the doors.

‘I–’

‘Sophie, trust me,’ said Misfit. He smiled and shifted over towards me.

I rose up onto my knees, shrugged off my jacket and pulled my jumper and t-shirt off over my head. I kept my eyes locked onto Misfit’s but noticed his eyes flick down as my t-shirt came off. I unhooked my bra at the back but didn’t take it off.

Misfit eased himself over so he knelt in front of me and he placed a hand behind my neck, pulling me towards him. We kissed, gently at first but then frantically as the days in forced separation after we had finally discovered each other now gave way to an urgent need to make up for lost time. With one hand, Misfit whipped off my bra while I pulled off his shirt. We undressed each other, ripping off items of clothing and throwing them away as the unwanted, pointless bits of fabric they were.

Hands and lips went everywhere. I wanted to touch and taste every bit of him while wanting to enjoy the sensation as he touched and tasted every part of me. I lay down on the bed, my back arching with pleasure, my flesh wanting his as close as it could possibly get. I don’t think I could have been more excited at that moment. I couldn’t help groaning and crying out with pleasure but at the same time conscious of not making too much noise in case we attracted zombies. The thought of zombies didn’t dull the moment, nor, I’m ashamed to say, did the thought of a lost child. She was being searched for. All I cared about was Misfit’s body and my body joined together and me thinking,
OK so this is what it’s all about
. I had never really understood what all the fuss was about before. That’s because I’d never experienced that level of sexual chemistry before. I wanted it to go on forever. It went on for quite a while – Misfit has a lot of stamina – and it happened again a couple more times too.