I Dream of Zombies (Book 2): Haven (38 page)

“We were told you were arrested,” remarked Ian and then he clammed up, not wanting to know the answer.

“
Your information was wrong, soldier, but we’ve arrested your three friends and if you try anything stupid, their deaths will be on your fucking heads,” Will gloated. “It doesn’t bother me either way and out here in the dark who’s going to know?”

“You have no power to arrest them,”
John argued. “You’re breaking the law.”

“
Law? Who’s fucking law? Is there a law now? Where’s the police?” he demanded. Smirking, he waved his gun at them. “This is the only law I know. Drop your weapons and kick them into the corner over there. Then you, Ellen, get out here and I’ll let the rest of you go. No one cares what happens to you lot, but I have orders to take her back with me. I can do this by force or I can just ask politely, like this – your choice.”

“You’ll kill us anyway,” Harold said as he hugged his wife.

“You have my word that I won’t.”

“Well, that’s worthless,” spat Ian. “I remember your word. It gets people killed.”

Will sucked in a breath, clearly trying to control his temper. “I’ll give you five minutes to decide. Like I said, your three companions are sitting here by the roadside, awaiting their fate. What do you want me to tell them?” With that, he strode out of view, leaving two soldiers to guard the open doorway of the Vector.

Sylvia
regarded Ian, Elliott and John, who had their weapons aimed on the soldiers, before settling her eyes on Ellen.

“No,” said Owen
, rising from his seat, “she can’t go with them.”

“Owen, I can,”
Ellen whispered, moving so close to him that only he could hear. “What I wanted to tell you earlier was that I lied to Doctor Grice. I saw them in my dream – the laughing man and the one who warned me. I saw them all. You must tell my sister. Tell her that I can do what I want in my dreams. I’m not afraid. Not anymore.” Before he could answer, she got up and looked down at him. “Don’t forget. Tell her not to worry. Sylvia, let me go. I don’t want anyone to die.”

The female soldier blocked her path. “I can’t let you. Sit down.”

“Please, it will be my fault if anyone dies and I couldn’t live with that.”

At that moment Will appeared in the doorway again. “So, do I have an answer? Are you going to put your weapons down
or are you forcing us into a shoot-out?”

Sylvia glanced at the other soldiers and gave a warning glance to the regular Joes to stay seated. Ian, Elliott and John kept their guns aimed on Will, who spat on the ground. His face twisted as his patience deserted him. “You think I’m joking?” he shouted. Not waiting for an answer, he disappeared from view
and his two soldiers guarded the doorway again. Will returned within seconds gripping Leah roughly by the arm. He nodded to the two soldiers who took a couple of steps backwards. Will then pulled Leah back from the doorway until they were clearly visible to most of the people inside the Vector. “This is what happens to people who don’t take my words seriously,” he said, placing the barrel of his handgun under her chin.

Tilting her head,
Leah grimaced and closed her eyes, but she didn’t scream. Martinez and Doug could be heard shouting in the background, but then a shot fired and they were quiet.

“Don’t!” Sylvia yelled
, horrified. She took a step forwards, the movement echoed by Ian and Elliott, but the two guards reappeared at either side of the doorway with their shotguns directed at their heads.

Peggy turned her head against her husband’s chest, not wanting to see anymore, and he hugged her against him. It was useless, thought Ellen, jumping up from her seat. If anyone fired, everyone else would follow suit. It would be a bloodbath. “Take me,” she called out. “I’ll come with you.” Owen grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back.

Will just laughed; a hollow sound. “You should have listened when I asked,” he stated calmly. He pressed the gun harder under Leah’s chin, forcing her head further back. She began to sob and plead, but he ignored her. Ellen struggled to get loose of Owen’s grip as everyone else seemed to freeze. Doug could be heard shouting, “No! No!” in the distance right before Will pulled the trigger. Blood and matter blew out the back of Leah’s skull and her lifeless body dropped heavily to the ground. Her dead eyes stared up at the darkening sky.

Silence reigned.

After what seemed countless seconds, Sylvia, Ian, John and Elliott threw their guns to the back of the vehicle. Harold kicked his borrowed shotgun away and Owen’s gun followed behind it. Peggy began to sob against her husband’s shoulder as Ellen pushed past Sylvia and stepped outside.

“I knew you’d make the right decision
in the end,” said Will Acre, taking her roughly by the arm and leading her to the side of the road. “Sit there.”

Ellen
lowered herself on to the grass next to Martinez and wrapped her arms around her legs. One side of the soldier’s face was grazed and bruised, and he had the beginnings of a black eye. His forehead was cut, but it did not look too deep. Ellen tried not to look at Leah lying on the ground, although it was difficult not to. One of Will’s guards emerged from the Vector carrying the confiscated weapons and he stepped over the body as though it were anything but. Ellen sighed and glanced at Doug who was staring at the guards with a look of pure hatred. She wanted to tell him something soothing, having heard how he and Leah volunteered to come to Haven, but there were no words.

Ellen turned her attention to
Caballero’s guards. They numbered eleven, she counted, and that included the two sitting in their trucks. She glanced up the gloomy road. If only someone happened to drive by, but no one would, not now. More likely it would be the dead they encountered first. Soon it would be dark. They were alone and no one was coming to save them. She shivered at the thought of Doctor Grice waiting for her.

“Are you alright?” Martinez
asked her.

She nodded.
“Does your face hurt?”

“No.
I’m sorry…”

“It isn’t your fault,” she replied. “Maybe it’s fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate.”

Ellen watched as some of the soldiers stepped into the
Vector and Will Acre strode over to the Panther. So confident in everything he does, she thought. He was the one who had tried to get her sister killed and almost succeeded. It was no secret now. She gazed up at the two soldiers who were guarding them. One rested against the side of the Vector while the other one smoked a cigarette. Their guns were their confidence; they gave them power and made them feel invincible. Without them they would be nothing, just little boys lost in this uncertain world.

Feeling a trickle of cold run up her spine, Ellen
peered over her shoulder to where the field stretched away, opening up beneath the darkening sky, welcoming almost, like an open palm. Looking back, she observed the smoking man turn to speak to the other guard. In the instant he moved, Doug jumped up and lunged at him. The two men wrestled while the other guard tried to pull Doug off. Martinez rose to his feet and seeing her chance, Ellen shot up and sprinted through the gap in the trees.

“Stop!”

A shot rang out, but Ellen did not falter. Instead she moved faster against the chilly breeze, thinking some of the soldiers would give chase, giving her friends better odds of saving themselves.

“Don’t shoot her!”
Will shouted. “Go after her.”

Without
pause, Ellen ran through the grass, fuelled by her instinct that carried her in one direction only.

***

There it stood, as it had done for so many centuries, captivating, yet foreboding, standing silent. Ellen ran towards the stones looming in the dim light, like stark white teeth against the horizon. Glancing back, she could make out the figures of three or four soldiers, still chasing, drifting closer. The empty field unfolded, as far as she could see; pure nothing with this monument at the centre, so luminous yet so strange.

A subtle sound appeared
to echo, almost resonant. It was as if she could hear the very stones if she listened hard enough. The panting of breath cut the quiet and Ellen froze before realising it came from her own throat, and with that surged a rush of reality. In her bid to escape, she had run into danger. How would she find Marla? Stonehenge waited, but it was a desolate place, bereft of anywhere to hide. On all sides the grass spread out, leading to places unknown. She hugged herself as the air grew chilly.

Where are the dead?

More dangerous at this time were the living, now gaining ground. “Ellen!” The name hung in the air as she ran on, listening to her footsteps thud against the grass and the heaviness of her own breath, emitted like an endless sigh. Ellen stopped and rested her hands on her knees, struggling to stop panting. Straightening up after a few seconds, she detected something shift outside her line of vision.
A shadow?

She gazed harder, but the only discernible objects were trees. It was the distance that made them blur and mimic something else.
Only trees, Ellen.
She checked on her pursuers, hoping to rest, but their proximity made it impossible. Gritting her teeth, she started to run again, almost stumbling when an unexpected form stepped out of the tree line far to the left. Ellen wiped her forehead and let out a hurried breath.

I’m not seeing things
; something is there.
She stopped for a second and squinted, willing herself to make it out. Her heart plunged as she realised the shadow was definitely approaching, albeit slowly.
The dead.
Behind her, the soldiers were gaining; they had not given up. “Ellen!” one yelled again.

She
surveyed the scene again, knowing she could not run forever. There were few choices when it came to somewhere to hide. To the left and right the field drifted. Ahead, beyond Stonehenge, she detected more movement; shadows flickering in the oncoming dark. They could only be the dead. Her eyes wandered back to the stones. They seemed to beckon, inviting her to find salvation within them, and yet she knew they could not fulfil that promise.

An empty circle of
standing stones.
There was nothing here and nowhere to hide, unless she managed to climb on top of one of the horizontal ones. Then, however many of the dead came, they would not be able to reach her so high up, where she could wait safely until dawn, and perhaps Marla or Tommy would come to look for her. Deep down she knew it to be only wishful thinking.

“Ellen!”

She paused for a second and turned, curious. The soldiers had stopped and were signalling to her. As if she would go with them; it almost made her laugh. Why had they given in so easily? There was nowhere for her to hide. Taking in her surroundings, she shivered. From the left and right, small groups of the dead drifted in.

The soldiers dared go
no further. She could see the sense in it, for there might be more creatures and these were too close. If the men followed her, they were doomed to share her fate, and she realised they lacked her blind bravery, or stupidity. With a final wave, they withdrew and she watched them make haste in the opposite direction until they blurred into nothing.

At last she was
alone. It was a flawed victory.

Ellen, what have you done?

She picked up her pace in a bid to close the remaining distance between herself and the prehistoric monument. In this place of peace and purity, and endless silence, the Bluestones called to her. No matter that they offered no refuge; she had to reach them. There was nowhere else to go.

Nearing the
stone circle, she caught an even truer view of what was coming: not a few small groups, but a whole herd of misty figures roaming closer, as though they too were attracted by such a sacred place. Out of the darkness they crept like blithe spirits in countless numbers. Their wordless language sought to smother the quiet; a hail of incongruous sound that played like a gasp of pure agony.

There was nothing
left to do except run, so she did, concentrating on her footsteps, even and rhythmic, in an attempt to shut out the clamour of the dead. Their wails rose, accompanied by groans and gasps in a ghastly cacophony carried on the breeze, mixing with the stench of rotting flesh. Ellen felt the air pass through her body, willing her on, but she could run no more.

Stepping inside Stonehenge,
Ellen raised her palm against the nearest stone. So cold, it rang with the vibrations of old, passing through her hand. She felt a warm tear slide down her cheek and she turned to rest her back against the stone. They were too high to climb and there was nothing to gain a footing on. How she had ever believed she could scale one she would never know. It was impossible. The fact was in evidence all around.

She
leaned back wearily and allowed herself to listen to the roar: the carnal cry of hunger. It would never stop, but tonight everything would end. She would never again see her sister or anyone else. Never breathe in the air, look up at the sky or bathe in the summer sun. And yet now it was almost over, she felt strangely at peace. There was no need to fight anymore. An overwhelming sense of calm washed over her. It resonated from the ancient ring of stones.