The Afflicted: A Zombie Novel (6 page)

“Hurry up, they’re getting closer!”
George was lagging behind, agog at the advancing dead, his mother running ahead of him now. Joe grabbed George’s hand and dragged him along. George’s feet barely touched the ground.

“There
!” called Amane, pointing to the warehouse. They ran through the car park, past empty trucks and vans, squeezing between the zombies. A metal grill was rolled half-up, leading into a loading bay. It looked quiet, dark, and cool out of the sunlight. As they all ran in under the metal grill, Evan shouted to Joe, “How do we close it?”

Karyn
took George’s hand and hugged him against her chest whilst the others scanned the walls. After what felt like an eternity, Joe found the switch and the metal door began rolling down to the rough concrete floor. The mass of zombies were close, and inches from the bottom, hands appeared, groping, feeling for life. Evan and Amane pounded on them with the golf clubs, breaking bones, mushing deadly hands into the ground whilst Joe held the switch down until the door finally closed, sealing them in. Decapitated fingers lay strewn over the dirty ground and Evan kicked them to a corner, disgusted. Joe flicked another switch, fluorescent lights flickering to life above them, lighting the room in a yellow glow.

“Where are we?” said
Amane, looking round. The bay was largely empty. A truck was to their right, a couple of empty refuse bins and boxes to the side and in front of them, a tall, windowless, brick wall with a solitary door. The metal grill was rattling and shaking as more zombies continued to pile up against it, eager to get in.

“You ok
ay?” said Evan to Amane. Her face was flushed with colour now and he was relieved to see she seemed more alert and alive. She nodded and flashed him a quick smile.

Joe
went to investigate the truck whilst Evan and Amane sat down, gathering themselves. Karyn sat too, holding George close, thinking her own private thoughts, feeling the warmth of her son’s body against hers. She smelled his boyish hair and was grateful he was still with her. George said nothing.

Evan and
Amane sat in silence, listening to Joe start the truck. Evan had propitious thoughts of escaping. Take the truck, crash through the metal barrier and get everyone away from this prison. Get himself back to his family. Joe turned the engine off and climbed down from the cab.

“No good. The gas tank’s
empty.” He sat down beside the truck and looked around at the faces staring back at him. He felt guilty for bringing such bad news, as if it was his fault the truck was useless.

Karyn
cast fierce, teary eyes around the group and stood up. “How secure are those doors, Joe?”

“Not secure enough,” was his reply. It was not what she wanted to hear.

“I would suggest we try that way,” said Joe, looking at the door into the warehouse. The metal grill holding back the zombie horde was rattling back and forth violently. The sounds of murmuring and groaning outside grew louder with every second.

Evan and
Amane got up and approached the door leading into the warehouse. Evan put his ear to it and listened.

“I can’t hear anything. I’ll go in first
.”

Evan
exhaled and turned the door-handle with a measured, steady hand. Amane gripped the golf club, knuckles white, sweat beading on her forehead. Casting it open, Evan ventured in a few feet. The warehouse was lit up by more overhead fluorescent lights that only exacerbated Evan’s headache. It was lined with rows and rows of boxes stacked on metal shelves. To the right, there was a small office: empty.

“Looks safe. I can’t see any other doors.” Evan came back to the doorway. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone here, but me and Amane will sweep around and check, see if there’s anyone else in here.”

Evan wasn’t worried about
who they might find inside, just whether they were alive or dead: or both. He and Amane disappeared inside, leaving Joe waiting with Karyn and George in the loading bay. Locked in silence with nothing but the sounds of the undead just feet away, it was a painful five minutes for both of them. Joe could think of nothing useful to say to Karyn, nor she him. They were both thinking about Lucy. After a few minutes, Evan appeared back in the doorway.

“I
t’s clear. We should be safe. Come on.” Angry, Evan looked intently at Karyn who was avoiding his searching eyes. She would have to wait. Evan went back into the warehouse followed by a weary Joe.

“Go on George.”
Karyn ushered her son through the doorway and looked back at the metal pull-down grill that was keeping the zombies at bay. As George disappeared inside, leaving her alone, she listened to the moaning and growling sounds outside. How had it come to this? Rolling back her sleeve, she looked at the teeth marks where Miguel’s mother had bitten her during their fight. The bleeding had stopped and she gathered herself together and pulled her sleeve back down, covering up the wound.

“Right.”

She strode
purposefully through the door and shut it behind her.

CHAPTER FIVE

In the cool warehouse, they splintered off. Karyn had taken George and was rummaging through boxes. Amane had gone exploring down a different aisle to Karyn. Joe needed some space; he was devoid of spirit and sat on the chair in the manager’s office, half-heartedly examining some pointless paper work on the desk. Evan thought it best he kept clear of Karyn for now. She had jeopardised his life and her selfishness was a real threat, not just to him, but his family. He pulled a couple of boxes in front of the door to make sure they were safe and went to find Amane. He trod carefully: the overhead lights cast suspicious shadows everywhere.

“Found anything useful?” he said
, approaching her. She held up tins of fruit and beans.

“Hungry?” she said, tossing him a can. He pulled back the opener and took the apricots out, swallowing them greedily. He literally couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten and didn’t realise just how hungry he actually was.

“Just what I wanted without even knowing it,” he said through a mouthful of fruit.

Amane
sat down cross-legged on the floor and delved into a tin of peaches. Evan ate, watching with curiosity. He couldn’t figure her out. She wore skinny jeans and a simple red singlet. Apart from the sadness in her eyes, she was good-looking, slim, and healthy. Innocent, he thought. He sat down opposite her, leaning back against a crate. As much as he wanted to talk to her, Evan was quite happy sitting in her company without forcing conversation. They ate their fruit until Amane’s slender fingers plucked the last peach from her tin and she sucked it down noisily. She looked up at Evan and he averted his eyes, realising he had been staring at her.

“We should take some of this to the others, they must be hungry too.”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled in agreement. “You know these people well? Are they your family?” she asked him. She wiped her sticky fingers on her jeans before running them through her long dark hair, tying it behind her head.

“No, I only met them yesterday.
My family is...lost. Well, I’m the one who’s lost really. I was in an accident at the airport and hit my head. I can’t remember anything before yesterday. When I say it out loud like this, it sounds bloody nuts.”

“You
have some nasty looking cuts on your head. We should see if we can find some medical supplies in these boxes. There’s bound to be some somewhere.” Amane reached out to him but stopped short of touching him as Evan stood up and grabbed some more tins from the box.

   “
Later. Let’s go talk to Joe. We need to figure a way out of here.”

Amane
stood up, grabbed some tins, and followed Evan. From afar, Karyn watched them. Joe was still sitting in the office chair, rifling through papers. Evan dropped a couple of cans on the desk.

“Eat. Think of it as part
of your five a day,” Evan said, leaning back against the wall alongside Amane.

Joe thanked him and tucked in
, relishing the sweet taste, the sugary food arousing his senses.

“Find anything useful?” asked Evan looking at the papers spread out over the desk.

“Nah. Found a nice calendar though. I present Miss WA 2038.” Joe held it up, grinning at the blonde woman in the bikini, draped over a rock on a glorious sun-drenched beach.

Amane
raised her eyebrows. “I guess she won’t be joining us for the celebrations next week. We’ll be lucky if there’s any Australia left to celebrate.”

Joe finished off the fruit and sat back.
“Look, Evan, things didn’t go exactly to plan out there. Poor Miguel. And I can’t believe Lucy’s gone. She was such a good kid...I’m not sure what to do now to be honest, mate. I’m through with Mrs Craven. It’s her bloody fault Lucy’s dead, rushing off into the house like that. You know she would’ve left you behind to die in that house? She’s a piece of work I tell ya. If Pete knew what had happened to his Lucy...” Joe slapped the desk in frustration.

“She’d never admit it, but she only married Pete for the money. He always was a sucker for the
ladies. God rest his soul.”

“
I know I only just met her, but I don’t trust her,” declared Amane.

“Believe me, there’s nothing I would like to do more than throw her to the wolves, but
we have to think about George. He just lost his sister and I’m not confident Karyn has his best interests at heart,” said Evan.

They
were silent, thinking about their situation. The zombies outside were very faint now, locked outside the building.

“
Amane, isn’t it?” said Joe. “Where’s home? Where are you headed?”

“I
have a flat in the city. I was just at the airport collecting my parents. They’d flown in from Tokyo.” She closed her eyes and clasped her hands before continuing.

“They’re dead now:
still at the airport. I could go home, but what’s the point? There’s nothing there for me apart from boring textbooks. I don’t even know how I’d get there. I reckon there are a million zombies between here and my place.”

“And you Joe?”
asked Evan.

“Similar story actually. I’ve got a small place south of the city
, close to Pete’s place, but there’s no chance of making it there through those things. Unless you found an armoured bulldozer? I thought Mrs Craven’s might be a good hideout until this shit is sorted out, but we’d never make it. You’d basically have to go into the city to get there. That’s
not
going to happen.”

“You think this
can
be sorted out, Joe? I don’t think so.” Amane was shaking her head. A dark cloud of fear and depression hovered over her like a summer thunderstorm brooding over a cornfield.

“When I met my parents at the airport
, they said they were pleased to see me, all the usual you know, but they said that back home in Tokyo, it wasn’t safe anymore. I hadn’t honestly followed the news, I’d been studying so much, but they said fights and riots had broken out all over the city and was spreading to the rest of the country. Apparently, Fukuoka was a no-go zone, the military had cut if off completely. It was the same in China, Korea, everywhere. They left just as things were getting out of control. They said they were pleased to be in a safe country. Look how that turned out.

“
The Kannushi were saying it was a curse and that our ‘Kami,’ our souls, were facing a day of reckoning: that mankind had brought this on itself. I’m not a believer in that anymore but my parents are. Were,” she corrected herself and went on.

“
At the airport, we went to look at the television screens and the things they were showing, my God. This isn’t some terrorist attack that we can send the army in to fight. This is unnatural: un-Godly. Dead people are walking around, killing us: killing the living. I’m starting to wonder if my parents were right. I mean look outside, right now, and you will see a hundred zombies just waiting to get in here and rip us apart. It only takes a second and we’d be dead. At the airport, my parents and me were leaving, when all of a sudden, it was happening right around us. It took just a few minutes and it was chaos. It was so quick. My father...”

Amane
welled up and bit her lip. She felt at ease with Evan and Joe, but still, she didn’t want to cry in front of these relative strangers. It wasn’t right.

“From what I’ve seen
, Joe, she’s right,” said Evan. “No one is going to come and save us. There is no police, army, or government. Law and order is fucked. I think the only thing we can do now is look after ourselves. Outside of this room, and George, that means I need to find my family.”

“Well,” said Joe, “if you have any bright ideas let me know.
Otherwise, we could be stuck in here for a while. You go out there now, it’s suicide. And it will not be quick and painless.”

 
  Joe opened the desk drawers and found a mobile phone. Whilst he spoke, he held it up, trying to find a signal. He threw it down on the desk.

“Nothing.
Mind you, who would I call?” He pursed his lips, thinking. Evan put his hand on Amane’s shoulder as she dabbed at her eyes.

“Remember last night, Joe?” Evan said. “
Those things had us surrounded out at the airport, but we stayed quiet all night and they disappeared. When we went out this morning, we only saw a couple. At least until we got to the terminal, anyway.”

“So we wait this out
,” said Joe. It was more of a statement than a question. “Kind of makes sense.”

“How long?
Hours, days?” Amane wiped her nose. “I spent all of last night stuck in a closet. We thought they had gone this morning too. But then...”

“In a couple of hours it’ll be midday. No matter how determined those things are, with the sun beating down on them
, they’re gonna start to flake out. Surely?” Evan was feeling more confident about his plan now.

“
The sun will sap the strength right out of them. They might not be human anymore as we know it, but they’re human bodies. I don’t think they’ve got the intelligence to shelter, so that should help us. Maybe they’ll get distracted? If we’re quiet enough, they might forget we’re in here and fuck off to find some other poor bastards.”

“
That’s a fairly sound plan. Even if they don’t all piss off, they should thin out enough for us,” said Joe, getting up out of the creaking black desk chair. “But then what?”

“Look
, I can’t ask you to come with me, but I have to find my children. I need to get a ride to the docks or a harbour somewhere and find a boat.” Evan turned to Amane. “They’re on Tasmania. My father has a boat and I think they’re in trouble. I
have
to go.”

“I think it’s safer
if we stick together,” she replied. “My parents are gone. I’ve nothing here. Look, if it’s okay with you, I’ll tag along?”

Evan held out his hand and she t
ook it with both hands.

“
Sure, thanks,” he said.

“Me too,” said Joe
, decisively. “If we wait until it’s quieter, we should be able to get to one of those trucks out in the car park we ran past on the way in. They’ll be tanked up, ready to go, and I know how to handle them. We’re the other side of that blockade now, so provided we don’t hit anymore, we should be able to make the docks all right. No need to go through the city either, we can skirt right around it on the ring road. Besides,” he said, smiling, “I’ve always fancied visiting Tassie.”

“Only one problem,”
Evan said, shoving his hands into his pockets. He nodded out into the warehouse. They all looked through the doorway at Karyn. She was sitting down with George, both with their heads stuck in boxes. She had stacked some around them as if making a fort.

“I’ll
try and talk to her in a bit, see where her head’s at,” said Evan. “Meantime, let’s make use of our time. Rest if you want, but I’m going to see what’s in these boxes. Even if we get an easy ride to the docks, with the boat trip over there it’s going to take us a while to reach my family. We should find supplies: water, weapons, food, whatever you think is useful and easy to carry. Bring it back to the office here and we’ll see what we’ve got.”

“I know where I’m starting,” said Joe
, striding out, “cigarettes and alcohol.”

Evan laughed as t
hey left the small office and took their own paths around the warehouse, walking up and down the aisles, examining any box that looked like it might offer up some token of help. Karyn and George kept to themselves.

* * * *

As Evan looked around, he saw above the office a small empty space, only dimly lit by the flickering neon above them. He found a small ladder propped against the sidewall and clambered up. He left large footprints behind on the floor, which was covered in thick dust and grime. A few mouldy pieces of cardboard lay scattered around, some empty boxes and various items that were clearly broken and had been discarded; many were coated in bird-droppings and dirt. Evan was about to climb down when he noticed a pull-down hatch in the roof. Trying to avoid breathing in the cloggy, gritty air, he went over to it and pulled on the latch. Brilliant sunlight burst through as the door swung on its hinges, the sunshine highlighting every droplet of dust hovering in the air. He pulled over a rickety three-legged stool and hauled himself up. It wasn’t easy, the roof was flat and hot, and there was nothing to grip onto. Grunting and sweating, he eased himself over the ledge and lay on his back staring up at the blue sky. What the hell am I doing, he thought to himself as he lay there quite still, listening to the decayed army below.

Evan rolled over
onto his front, and achingly slowly, crawled over the hot, harsh concrete to the edge of the roof. He surveyed the scene below him. There must have been at least a hundred, maybe two, banging on the warehouse door, trying to push past each other to get inside. As he peered over the edge, the noises grew louder and the putrid stench of the dead floated up to him, making his eyes water. He had to put his hand in front of his mouth to stop himself from gagging.

Thi
s affliction, this curse or whatever it was, thought Evan, it truly spared no one. A splintered slice of society shambled beneath him: young and old, male and female. They were surrounded by a plague of people who had been planning their futures, only to find the future was both painful, and painfully short. Evan was surprised at the colours. He couldn’t deny the sickening blood that sheathed most of them was at the forefront. But these were people who, until about two days ago, were living their life as normal, wearing their everyday clothes. There were young men wearing bright football shirts, kids wearing clothes of great blues and bright greens, young women wearing skimpy tops and tiny shorts of all colours: yellow vests, bright pinks and vivid ambers. Who knew death would be so vivid?