Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost (9 page)

‘No one to lose.’

‘Soph, come on,’ said Clay.

I had one leg over the window sill. I swung the other over and balanced on the ledge.

‘Exactly.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Enjoy the end of the world.’

‘I will,’ said Mal. ‘I have a front row seat.’

I lowered my body down, losing sight of Mal and his undying joy, until my toes touched the narrow ledge. Gripping the wider ledge above with my fingertips, I let go and jumped to the ground. Why couldn’t Mal just accept the misery and the inevitable despair of loss like the rest of us?

‘Took your time,’ said Misfit, breaking my train of thought. He stood near the front of the van, his small knife jabbing into zombies’ heads, holding them back as he waited for me and Clay. Charlotte stood at the back, using her cleaver to keep the side door clear. Clay came tumbling down behind me and the four of us dived into the van.

The tyres screeched as the van sped off. Misfit shoved me down onto a black sofa at the back and I could now see that the van was a converted campervan complete with a tiny kitchen area between where I sat and the front cab. I watched Clay kick a zombie that had managed to grip onto the doorframe. Charlotte swung the door shut and I heard it click into place. I looked out through a window in the side of the van as Kay drove us through the zombie infested streets of Ashford, looping around the other side of the hairdresser/jewellery store. I glanced up to see Mal waving to us, a smile on his face. A man who had learned the value of everything but who chose to have nothing.

As I lost sight of Mal I turned my sights to look out through the windscreen. I thought we were on a collision course with a pub directly ahead, but Kay swung the tired sounding vehicle to the left, then to the right, back onto the high street. We carried on straight, the thud, thud of bodies against metal as we hit the zombies in our path audible over the screeching engine, and out onto a main road. The van swerved left, then right, straight then left as Kay drove us away from Ashford town centre. There were no more thuds of dried flesh against metal so I guessed the way was clear of zombies. I turned back to the side window and saw buildings, crashed cars, gridlocked streets, houses whoosh by in a blur until the urban landscape was replaced by more and more green.

Charlotte had moved upfront to sit with Kay, while Clay sat on the sofa opposite me and Misfit. We were on our way. In an hour, maybe more to account for gridlocked roads, we would be in Guildford.

I was finally going home. 

January 3, 8pm

‘This is the one,’ I said yesterday as I pointed to the white fronted Victorian semi.

Kay stopped the camper, pulling in at an angle behind the row of cars outside, and leaving the rear of the large van sticking out into the road behind us.

‘We here, sweetie?’ I glanced into the back of the van where Charlotte and Clay sat, me having switched seats with Charlotte in order to give Kay directions as we neared Guildford. Misfit sat in the front with me, gripping my hand for support.

‘Yep.’

‘You OK, Soph?’

‘No.’

Misfit squeezed my hand tighter.

We all climbed out of the vehicle and the others, apart from Misfit who clung onto my hand, gave me space to inch my way up the front steps to the white uPVC door. I slipped my fingers from Misfit’s and pulled my knife from my belt. With my free hand I tried the door handle. Locked. I wasn’t surprised but I didn’t have my keys with me. They were still at the house in Folkestone – the student digs I’d shared with Sam, Polly and Richard before the outbreak.

It was almost a relief. I could give up now and still be in ignorant bliss – so to speak – about what fate befell my parents. I could walk away. I should have walked away. I placed my hand against the white plastic door and imagined my mum on the other side, reaching out a zombiefied hand to touch the back of the place where mine rested. Would she be able to sense me, even if she was a zombie? Is it possible for all that love from the person who carried me inside them for nine months and gave birth to me and raised me and cared for me even when I was being a right cow, is it possible for it to be so completely lost?

If my parents were inside, would they tear me apart? Of course they would. The zombie virus rarely leaves anything behind.

But sometimes it does.

I should have walked walk away, saved myself from knowing. I should have… but I edged past the recycling bins to the right and peered through the living room window. I couldn’t see anything through the curtains. They were drawn, covering every inch of window. Mum always used to moan that Dad never drew them properly. He always left a little gap in the middle and she would go over and straighten them out, ever so slightly OCD. We used to joke about it, wind her up. They’d been drawn very carefully, with no chinks, probably early on in the outbreak to avoid attracting the attention of the zombies outside.

With my view blocked, I rejoined the others on the street. Without a word, I crept to the left of the house and down an alleyway. I tried the wooden gate in the fence, but that too was locked. A little further down the alley, I came to a fence panel that had given way. With the others behind me, I paused. None of them knew why I stood and stared at the seemingly innocuous piece of wood. I hadn’t told any of them the details of what had happened to my little brother – how Jake had been playing outside and how no one had noticed the loose section of fence. How a zombie had got through and how Jake had been bitten before either Mum or Dad could stop it. All they knew was that I didn’t know what had happened to my family after all contact ceased abruptly soon after the outbreak.

I slid through the fence panel, just as the zombie had done just over a year ago, into the garden, with the others following me silently. I edged my way to the back door and, with my knife at the ready in case my parents or Jake were waiting for me – not knowing if I would be able to use my blade if they were – I tried the door. It opened.

I stuck my head inside and glanced down the long galley-style kitchen. The air smelt stale but not of death and the oak block work surfaces were dusty. The room was empty. I eased myself inside what was officially my house but that had long ago ceased to be my home. My feet made little sound as I crept along the tiled floor. I was very aware that the narrow room would not be a great place to come face to face with zombies, especially the zombies of my family who I didn’t know – couldn’t even promise to myself – that I’d be able to kill. I think that Misfit sensed this, and, just before we came out into the dining room, he squeezed past me so that he emerged first.

The dining room was also empty. I stood on the terracotta coloured carpet and called out in a shaky voice, ‘Mum, Dad?’ I strained my ears. Nothing.

The living room with its red sofas that Mum loved and Dad always joked he needed sunglasses to look at, was also empty. I doubled back to the staircase between the dining room and living room, with the chest freezer beneath it – the only place it would fit in the modest sized terrace – and, easing past Misfit, I inched up the steps to the next floor.

Stepping onto the landing, I could see straight away that the doors to each of the three bedrooms were open. If there were any zombies inside the house, they would have made themselves known by now. Even so, I still approached each room with my heart like an angry wasp in my mouth and my hands shaking and damp with sweat. The others remained downstairs. Being a small house, I suppose they didn’t want to get in the way. Only Misfit followed me up and he hung back in the narrow landing to let me search the rooms. As I’d guessed, each room was empty of the undead. They were also empty of the living.

I checked my bedroom last. Alone, I stood in the middle of the room for a moment, my head bowed as I tried to take in the fact my parents were gone, as well as drink in the aged familiarity of my surrounds. After a moment I took a deep breath and forced myself to skulk towards my bed where I took a seat. Misfit popped his head through the open door then. He half smiled and entered the room, striding across to sit down beside me, close enough that our legs touched.

‘Where are they?’ I said, staring at my lap.

‘Maybe they got out and went somewhere else.’

I glanced up at Misfit. ‘My brother got bit early on,’ I said. ‘I had been emailing my parents but we lost touch after that – just like that,’ I clicked my fingers. ‘Why wouldn’t they have contacted me if they’d got out?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Misfit placed a hand on one of mine resting in my lap and squeezed. ‘But if your folks had been bitten by your brother, they would be here, wouldn’t they… as zombies? The place was sealed up when we got here.’

‘That’s what I was expecting.’

‘Sophie, they must have escaped. They probably had to get out quick after your brother turned and they didn’t have the chance to take any personal belongings so they wouldn’t have had any of your contact details. I mean, did you ever know anyone’s email address or phone number off the top of your head? We all had them programmed into our computers or phones, no need to remember them. Maybe they had no way of contacting you?’

‘Then where’s Jake, my brother? He’d still be in here if they’d had to escape from him. The doors where all shut. Jake didn’t wander off by himself.’

‘Maybe they let him go first, cos they couldn’t put him down?’

‘Then why would my mum and dad need to escape if they already managed to let him go?’

Misfit opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. He stared into my eyes and shrugged. ‘Maybe it was too painful to stay.’

‘Then they’d have emailed me to say they were safe and moving on!’ I said exasperated.

‘I don’t know, Sophie.’

‘But if they all died in here, where are they now?’ I said, my voice cracking. I had hoped to get answers by coming home but all I got were more questions.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Misfit. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘There’s nothing to say,’ I said shaking my head. ‘Even if they escaped, I have no idea where they would have gone and they’re probably dead by now anyway. I suppose I’ll never know what happened to them.’

I heaved myself back a little and lay down on my single bed, still made up with my old green quilt cover with its pink cherry blossoms. I lay on my side, my eyes flicking around the room at my belongings – so familiar but, strangely, so alien. I stared at my dressing table, just an old oak table we’d picked up in a charity shop that I had painted white and distressed by sanding it down so it had a vintage, upcycled look to it. I did the same effect on the wardrobe and my bedside table. The bookshelf was also a second hand find from a car boot sale, but that I had left unpainted, as I had my desk under the window. I liked the eclectic look and didn’t want everything matching.

The bookshelf was rammed with books, mostly horror: Stephen King, James Herbert, Darren Shan. Also Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, some Roald Dahl from when I was a kid, some chick lit, poetry books, text books, some Shakespeare plays – Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Macbeth – all filled with inky notes from my GCSEs and A levels – everything by Scarlett Thomas, and a few by Hemingway. You name it, it was piled up and stuffed into my bookshelf. The overspill lay in heaps on the floor and on my desk and bedside table. There were more books on my dressing table than make up or beauty products.

Misfit lay down beside me and put his left arm over my waist. ‘You like to read, huh?’ he said, glancing around my room.

‘Yup.’

‘I had to hide my books on self-sufficiency and nature and stuff, or Caine would’ve taken the piss or… once he caught me reading and he pulled the book off me and ripped it in half. Said I should be out doing something useful like learning how to nick shit from the shopping precinct that he could sell, not filling my head with nonsense.’

I turned onto my side so I could look at him. ‘What happened to your real dad?’

‘No idea. I never knew him.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. He might have been worse than Caine for all I know. My mum, she did her best for me and Faye, but she had really shit taste in blokes.’

‘Your sister, was Caine her dad then?’

‘Nope.’

‘Oh.’

‘Caine walked out on my mum once and after a while she hooked up with this other guy. Jeff. He was alright, Jeff. Then about a year later, Faye was born. I was too young to understand what happened, but one day when Faye was a few months old, Jeff just left. Took me a while to get my head around it. I didn’t think he’d do that but off he went and mum was sadder than usual for a bit and none of us ever saw him again. Not long after, Caine moved back in.’

‘I guess I was lucky,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know it at the time. I thought Jake was an annoying pest. I was close to both my parents but I always thought my dad didn’t understand me. I always had the feeling that I wasn’t quite the daughter he wanted me to be. We had so little in common. He was academic and into quizzes and team sports and I’ve always been arty and happy with my own company. He always said I had my head in the clouds. I don’t dispute that, but it was the way he would say it, like that was a bad place to keep your head. He didn’t want me to study writing. He wanted me to do something like maths. But I suck at maths. I hate maths.

‘I just wanted him to accept that we were different instead of being disappointed by it. But I know he loved me. We were happy. I miss them.’