Only The Living (Lost Survival Series Book 1) (7 page)

“Beth?” I breathed heavily, wiping the tears from my eyes and trying to prevent further fits of laughter. “Is that you?”

Plodding towards the bedroom door, I opened it slightly and saw that the landing was empty. The evening light trickled through from Ian’s room, still opened by a crack — Beth was lying in his bed, facing me with her confused expression visible in the pale moonlight.

If it wasn't Beth...
My face dropped like a hammer, widening my eyes as I prepared to be thrown into danger once again. Glaring down the pitch-black staircase, I recognised a blurry shape pounding on the glass window.

“Ian! Get your ass out here, now!!”

Back in the other room, Ian almost tripped over the risqué drawer upon hearing the gruff voice, shoving everything back into its original position. He joined me in the hallway with a face which, despite sounding corny, looked like he'd seen a ghost.

“Don't make me shout this whole damn street down, man. I saw the light at the window... Come out already!! I swear, I'll bring every single one of those freaks here if I have to!!”

I didn’t know which part I was more concerned about; the idea of letting this stranger inside our shelter, or how Ian seemed to be traumatised by his presence. I put my hand on his shoulder, apparently breaking some sort of spell as he barrelled down the staircase and unbolted the door, letting the midnight visitor in without further question.

Heated whispers flew between them, and with one guilty glance up at me, Ian pulled the brawny man into his colourless living room to have a more private conversation. Beth joined me in the hall, clearly annoyed with her rest being disturbed a second time.

“...What's... going on? I heard a funny noise... Where's Mister Ian?”

I motioned to the bottom of the stairs, but before I could put her back to bed, Beth’s grin had already reached mischievous levels. Sneaking down into the darkness, the 8-year-old peeked herself around the corner in an attempt to spy on the two men. Having nothing better to do with my time, and feeling curious about Ian's new friend myself, I soon joined her.

“...Why did you come here, this late at night? Those things are everywhere!” Ian’s voice sounded somewhat troubled, and not just for safety's concern.

The man gravelly chuckled to himself, almost dismissive. “...What, you didn't think I'd come to check up with you, after what you pulled? Gimme a break, as if those freaks could even land a scratch on me.”

I couldn't tell whether this was a violent visit, or if it had something to do with Ian's parents. Whatever the case, our host seemed to want this over as soon as possible.

“You shouldn’t have come here, just... forget that anything happened. I found some good people, a little girl as well. They don't know me at all, okay? I can start over again.”

Ian's voice seemed to be trembling, clearly uncomfortable with his proximity to the man. Despite projecting an air of control, he kept fidgeting with the bottom of his shirt. Just who was he, and why was Ian so cautious around him?

Lowering his head, Ian could barely look his visitor in the eye. “What they think, it's really important to me. They trust me, they don't judge me, not even when I get mad at them. We're strong together, but if you're here... It's only a matter of time, before they figure—”

Ian's head suddenly jerked around the corner, scaring the living daylights out of Beth at my side. “What are you two...” he sighed, letting a tiny smile spread from the corners of his lips. He seemed annoyed, yet slightly amused at our god-awful attempt at eavesdropping.

“...C-Can we have a minute, alone? This is Harry, by the way. He's a...” Ian stumbled to find the right word. “...He's a
friend.
”

To be courteous, I leaned in to shake the spiky-haired visitor’s hand — although I think he preferred crushing instead of shaking. Soothing my bent fingers as we left the living room, it was safe to say that neither Beth nor I could sleep at this point, so we raided the kitchen together for a midnight snack.

I didn't want Beth to eat anything with too much sugar, so I washed an apple for her. The running water only dribbled out of the tap now, but we collected enough to share a bottle between us.

We were running low on fruit, but I didn't mind since Ian's house had enough food to last us at least a week. Beth poked my side invasively, already having finished her meal. “...Do you know who Mister Ian's friend is?”

I shook my head as I took my sip of water, passing the bottle to the inquisitive Beth. She refused to drop the subject, as expected. “They look like friends, but Mister Ian didn't look too happy to see him. Wonder why...”

It was rather sweet, how worried Beth felt towards Ian. They'd formed such a close bond, and we'd barely known her for two days. I guess the same could be said for Ian and myself, as well. Nothing like a terrifying infectious outbreak to bring a group together.

“I don't think we have to worry. Sure, it looks weird, but whatever's happened with Ian in the past... it doesn't change what he's done for us, right? Besides, it might be a good thing if his friend sticks around. He looks real tough, hah.”

Beth agreed, and helped me clean up the messy kitchen out of habit. We went through the living room to head back to bed, a path I hadn’t considered until it was too late. I hoped that they wouldn’t mind the interruption...

Ian looked noticeably fatigued, stressed by a rather intense conversation with his friend Harry. The thug glared at him strangely, almost as though he didn't quite know who Ian was himself. To tell the truth, I was starting to empathise.

A certain chill swept over us, the atmosphere collapsing into itself as we all jolted with alarm. Surely we
all
didn't hear that just now, I told myself with a throaty gulp. Then it happened again, and there was no mistaking it. We had another visitor.

“Ian,” I breathed tensely. “You... locked the front door again, right?”

One tiny mistake, that's all it took. After the first few broke in, the Lost poured themselves in from that single entrance; within seconds, the whole ground floor was swarming with their kind. Thankfully, we had the good sense to climb the staircase while nabbing my rucksack and metre stick, or else we wouldn't have been able to push past.

The home invaders seemed to be having some trouble navigating the inclination of the stairs, buying us some time to strategize. “Beth, go and grab Ian's bat. See if you can find anything Harry can use to defend himself with.”

“No problem mate, I'm already covered.” He grinned at me as he tossed a sleek switch-blade into the air, catching it with the back of his hand. Embedded with a Chinese dragon design, it looked more like something a tourist would buy instead of a deadly weapon.

My own prejudice was telling me that the blade was his personal lucky charm... He must have been some kind of gang member, only a couple of days ago.

Bouncing forward like a boxer in the ring, he threw lightning-fast punches into the faces of the Lost with his knife sticking out from between his middle and index fingers. As they dropped lifelessly onto the stairs, he seemed strangely excited about having our safe house overflowing with the dead.

When Beth returned with the cricket bat, the newcomer called 'Harry' turned to spout a curt laugh. “Cricket? You, Ian? What are you gonna do, wait for the freaks to pick you last for their team?”

Ian ignored the comment with a cold turn, and then it struck me.
Could this be the bully who almost stabbed him?

Not having the time nor the peace of mind to think about it, my eyes zeroed in on the car keys hooked against the front door. “Those keys... Does that car out front belong to your parents?”

Seeing where I was going with this, Ian nodded and threw himself ahead of Harry, who was surprised by the sudden spike in courage. While the tall visitor and I restrained the Lost on either side of the lobby, Ian swiftly picked up the keys and threw them at my face. “You're driving.”

The chilly night air wrapped under my clothes, sending shivers throughout my body as we charged towards the miniature red vehicle parked outside. I wasn't comfortable with Beth being lifted out of the house by the knife-wielding stranger, but it was probably better than having her on ground level.

I just hoped that I remembered enough from my driving lessons to start the car, never mind manoeuvring it. I never got my licence — in fact, I stopped learning due to how catastrophic my driving skills were. At least now, it wouldn’t matter if I hit anything... except a brick wall, of course.

Once we were all seated, it was pretty unnerving to watch all of the Lost quickly surrounding our car. They banged on the doors and snarled through the paper-thin windows with their grey, clammy faces. It took me until then to realise that it was a manual car, not like the automatic I'd driven before... It was irrelevant, really. It's wasn’t like a stick shift could make my driving any worse than usual.

“...Let's do this.” I turned the ignition on, and gunned it down the street. The engine revved throughout the neighbourhood, drawing in all of the looming figures and knocking over two or three wheelie bins as I went.

Even though it was pitch-black, I still had my reservations about putting the headlights on. Instead of giving away our location, I opted to drive a little slower once we were away from the initial crowd beside Ian's house. “We need to go to the community centre,” Harry exhaled. “...Your parents are fine, Ian. I saw them there.”

I could hear the boy sigh in relief. His tall new friend leaned backwards in his seat, scratching behind his ear like a dog.

“I would've talked to them, but those damn cops sent me out with two other punks to get some supplies. Damn near left me for dead too, the bastards. I knew I had to find you though, I couldn't... I couldn't leave things the way we—”

“Yeah, great. Thanks for telling me. We still need to head for Daniel's house, then we’ll go to the centre.” Out of the corner of my rear-view mirror, I could've sworn that I saw Ian's face turn bright-red.

Harry's eyes flitted towards me in a rather piercing manner, almost making me lose control of the steering wheel. “Daniel... Wait, Daniel... Is your last name Walker?”

I nodded, surprised that the strange man who turned up on someone else's doorstep at midnight knew my full name. Word must get around.

As the Lost started increasing in number in front of our car, I instinctively swerved out of the way to avoid running them over. I tried not to think of them as things that needed saving, but I guess I still had reservations about killing people-shaped monsters.

“Daniel Walker... Your mum's Joanna Walker? Yeah, she's at the centre too! She's got your name and photo up on the 'missing persons' wall... I thought I recognised you!” I almost crashed the car, glancing back with a double-take to see if he was serious.

Mum... I had been so absorbed in Beth's and Ian's family situations, that I had barely considered my own. Perhaps deep down, I didn’t want to think about any alternatives.

The morning before I left for my interview, she held me close and wished me good luck for my future... That last memory was what kept me going, what I remembered when I needed strength.

I was glad to hear that she was alive and well, although it sounded like she was worried about me, putting up posters of my face.
I hope it’s a good picture, yeesh. Thanks, Mum.

“Is she with a guy called Carlos? Her husband?” I asked, my attention turning to her partner since last year. I never had much time to connect with my step-dad, but he was important in her life. If anything had happened to him, I doubted that she would be able to handle it well.

“...No, don’t remember any Carlos. Everyone in there's closely knit, so we'd definitely have seen him around. Nurse Joanna just came by and started fixing up the people who were injured. Set up her own medical corner in the main hall, too. She's a real champ.”

If I knew my mum, she was grieving about losing Carlos and myself, drowning herself in her work. I pressed harder on the gas pedal, hoping that I remembered the right way to the community centre.

After driving around in circles for a couple of blocks, we finally happened across a large, fenced-off building with the illuminated sign ‘Danderhall Community Centre’. They must have had generators somewhere on the lot; an absolute necessity, if we were going to wait this chaos out.

“Look, Ian! Lights!” Beth yelled restlessly, with a unique dazzle reflected in her eyes. Where that kid got all of her energy from, I had no clue.

“What happened to 'Mister', huh?” Ian sank into his seat, fighting the urge to fall asleep right there.

A lone man in a police uniform was alarmed by our presence, until Harry stuck his spiky head out of the window. “We're back! Brought some supplies... Harry Burnside? You better let us in, pigs!” The tension rose as the scattered Lost began to emerge from the darkness behind us. We were pretty much out of fuel, too. If we couldn't get in here…

Luckily that thought didn't have to go any further, as the policeman briskly opened the gates for us to drive through, and quickly slammed them shut again. While he locked up, we stepped out of the car with ourselves and our loot intact. The three of us did a corny celebratory jump together, while Harry shook his head awkwardly and the confused guard waddled back to his post.

We rushed in through the heavy double-doors of the building, eager to see what the fabled safe haven was like. Passing the sickly-yellow fluorescent lights of the community centre’s lobby, if began to feel more like a hospital than anywhere else.

As we burst into the main hall, we saw that makeshift beds and living areas for families were laid out all over the floor, possibly for around thirty or forty people. Everyone sat in their own clusters of anxiety, cramped together in the enormous gymnasium.

“There's so many people! That’s nice,” Beth breathed happily. I checked the corners of the room to validate what Harry had told me, and sure enough, there was a big red cross hanging over at the far side of the hall.

Most of the evacuees were already asleep, meaning that we couldn’t make much noise. The others followed in my quiet footsteps, careful as we tip-toed over their sleeping bags. Unfortunately, our plan didn’t include the approach of someone who didn't have the same polite manners as us.

Before I could turn around to see, a rock-hard fisted slap greeted my upper jaw, and I wobbled to my knees in seething agony. Peering up at my assaulter, I could tell that Ian, Beth and Harry were even more startled than I was — but believe me, the slap was justified.

“Long time, no see. Fucking idiot.”

The flowing brown hair of my childhood friend Millie span around and struck my face once more with its strands, frigid as she promptly exited the main hall.

I turned to meet the widened eyes of my three friends, exploding with questions already. Instead of explaining anything, I just ended up laughing at myself, which only made me look even crazier as I lay defeated on the gym floor.

“Yup... That's about right, I guess.”