Undead at Heart (19 page)

She thought for a moment.
If Alyssa was anywhere, she was probably with the horde which was ascending
towards them. She would be in their mix, adding her piping snarl to the massed
sound. Nicola did not want to see that. And, if by some miracle, her girl was
still alive, she would be somewhere other than down there. So, away from them
was certainly the best bet.
But where to?
She could
only think of one place, and she realised it was already where they were
heading.

“The village,” she
panted
as she ran. “The others might… have found shelter…
and we might… be able to find them.”

Dave nodded and she
saw him glance back to check on the others.

For all that he had
let her
down,
he was turning out to be a good man. She
felt, rather than saw, as he dropped back, and she risked a glance to see him
helping Sam whose trainers were slipping off, despite the extra socks. He had
his arm around her shoulder and she was kicking them off. Sam looked up and saw
Nicola looking back. “I’ll be better in socks. Used to run school cross country
in bare feet! Like Zola Budd, you know?”

Nicola just nodded and
kept going. It wasn’t like they could stop for the girl to adjust her clothing,
anyway.

At least it was
downhill for this part, she thought. Gravity was their helper. Even as the thought
passed through her mind, she caught her foot on a hussock of grass, the weight
of her backpack pushed her centre of gravity up, and she fell forward, rolling
even as she hit the ground. She carried on, unable to stop, sometimes with the
pack beneath her, sometimes on top, rolling, skidding and falling down the
hill.

She finally stopped,
dazed and winded, once the ground started to level off. She knew she was lucky
not to have hit her head on any rocks on the way down, but she felt like she
had been battered. She lifted her head, looking around, trying to see where she
was, and trying to force her protesting muscles to lift her from the floor. She
had barely managed to focus when the others arrived at her side, their own
momentum causing them to leap and gallop down the hill. Tony and Daz reached
her at about the same time, Dan just behind them and Dave still monitoring Sam,
the two of them coming down more slowly.

Barely slowing, the
two men in front scooped her up onto her feet and carried her backwards a
little way until they could control their flight long enough to set her down.
Tony pulled on her arm to get her facing back in the right direction. His face
asked a question and she nodded to answer it, telling him she was okay to carry
on.

Dave and Sam arrived
moments later, nearly colliding with the backs of the others, and then they
were off again.

The ground had
levelled off again, so it was easier to stay balanced, but harder to keep
moving. Nicola was aware now of the weight of the pack on her back, and her
knees and thighs hurt where they had slammed into the ground during her tumble.

She ran more slowly
now, a slight limp in her stride. Tony and Daz, although capable of greater
speed, stayed at her side. Part of her wanted to tell them not to worry and to
just run, but the greater part was glad they were there in case she needed
them. She had already been scared, but falling down the hill had only added to
it.

Now they were back on
the flat, and without the sun or the road to guide them, Nicola was no longer
sure they were heading in the right direction. The haze in her head from the
fall didn’t help. She wanted to glance back in case seeing the hill would help
her orientate herself, but she didn’t dare in case she tripped again. She had to
rely on Tony and Daz having some sense of where they were going.

She hated relying on
others at any time, but now it seemed so much worse. She had grown used, in
such a short time, to being the one in charge, the one who the others followed.
But now she was the one that had to be led. She hated it.

They had reached the
first real field – covered with low crops rather than ovine body parts - when
the howl sounded behind them again. She could tell it was coming from the top
of the hill and knew that now their attackers would have the advantage of
gravity to help them catch up. She tried to go faster but her knee threatened
to buckle. Tony moved closer to her, slid his hand round her back underneath
the straps of the pack, and lifted.

With the weight no
longer pulling on her, she found her legs were stronger than she had thought.
She felt him lift and tug at the pack and she let her arms slip from it, only
barely breaking stride as she did so. He swung it away from her and passed her
the shotgun. He slipped it over one shoulder, then up onto his back, adjusting
his stride to compensate. He reached out his hand and she passed the gun back
to him.

As she ran, feeling so
much lighter now, she glanced at him. She was still angry with him for what he
had done to Sam, but she couldn’t stop herself from feeling warm towards him
too. Taking her pack was such a selfless and generous gesture, and she couldn’t
imagine the man who she had pulled from his car less than 24 hours earlier
doing such a thing. He had changed so much, and for the better. She didn’t
know, couldn’t know, how this craziness would end. But she thought it might
just be the making of him.

It was a strange
thought to have in the middle of this mad dash, but then again what wasn’t
strange about the things they were caught up in.
Spaceships?
Zombies?
Giant robots?
Laser beams that made clouds?
In the midst of all that,
thinking about how someone might be becoming a better person seemed positively
liberating; like an oasis of normality in the madness.

Feeling stronger and
more able, she risked a glance back. She tried to shout, but her voice caught
in her throat.

Despite the dark she
could make out the shapes flooding down the hill. But that wasn’t what had made
her shout. The first two shapes – creatures that had once been men – had almost
reached them.

She managed to cough
out a, “Look out,” but it was too late. They had launched themselves into the
air, and one each landed on the backs of Sam and Dave. She tried to turn, to go
back, but Tony grabbed her arm and pulled her along.

“Just… keep… running!”

Alan joined James in
pulling at Buster’s reins, but to no avail. The horse simply pulled back, then
used his strong neck muscles to toss his head so hard that the reins were
pulled from their hands. The shock of losing hold sent Alan, who had been
standing, crashing back into the seat, nearly knocking James and himself to the
road. But James managed to jam his leg into the side board and push back,
keeping them both from falling into the path of the zombies.

They re-seated
themselves, gazing forward impotently as the wagon neared the wall of zombies,
then realised they needn’t have worried. Buster was stopping for neither man
nor zombie. He ploughed straight into the waiting group, trampling and kicking
as though he knew they were the enemy. Others disappeared into the iron-rimmed
wheels of the coach, causing it to jolt and bounce. James glanced back and saw,
with relief, that the others had seen what was coming and had braced
themselves
. Andy had sat down again, and was helping Bert
and Doreen weather the worst of this roller-coaster ride.

He looked back and saw
that they were reaching the back of the crowd, which must have been ten deep.
Buster had cut a
swathe
through them. However, doing
so had slowed him somewhat and one zombie, fast enough to dodge the slower
horse, leapt past him for the front of the wagon. James recoiled in fear, but
Alan didn’t pause. He rose once more to his feet and swung the stout metal bar
which had been his weapon of choice. James closed his eyes before the impact,
but heard it hit with a dead, crunching thud. He opened his eyes and the zombie
was gone. In fact, all the zombies were gone. The road was clear ahead of him.

Alan turned and jumped
into the back of the wagon, and James heard more thumping and crunching. James
didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see, but presumed the noise was Alan and
Andy swinging their weapons of choice at zombies who had managed to gain
purchase on the moving cart. With nothing to impede him, Buster was picking up
speed again, and soon the noises stopped. James risked a glance back and saw
the two men, standing straddle-legged in the wagon, sweating but grinning,
patting each other on the back. Andy had large ragged scratches on his arm
which were oozing blood, but otherwise the two seemed unhurt.

Then James was aware
of a low moaning coming from beside the two men, and worried for a moment that
a zombie had got past them. It wasn’t a zombie,
though,
it was Bert cradling Doreen in his arms. She seemed to have fainted.

Then James saw the
blood. It covered her head in a caul. No, it was worse than that. It was her
head. A zombie must have flung its arms over the side of the wagon, grabbed her
under the neck and ripped her head clean off when it fell back. What lay in
Bert’s lap as the old man keened, was the slowly draining headless corpse of
his wife.

James leant over the
side of the wagon and threw up. There wasn’t much in his stomach so it was
mainly burning acid. The world swam in front of him, not helped by the sight of
the road passing under the wagon. He vomited again, and for a moment the world
went black.

When he came back to
his senses, the road was still rushing in front of his eyes, and a commotion
was coming from the back of the wagon. He pulled himself upright and looked
back. Bert was on his feet, Doreen’s body lying where she had fallen, and Andy
and Alan were holding his arms to prevent him from leaping from the back of the
cart.

“You
bastards!
You fucking
bastards! That was my wife! My wife! I’m going
to kill every last one of you fuckers! Let go! For fuck’s sake let me go!”

Despite his age he was
still obviously strong, and managed to pull his right arm free from Andy’s
grip. His arm pistoned forward in sudden release, his whole body threatening to
topple from the back, but Alan held him tight. As he came upright again, his
loose arm whipped backwards and hit Andy in the stomach, knocking him onto his
bottom with a whoosh of expelled breath. Bert turned his face up towards Alan,
and despite the darkness, James could see the anger, the misery, and the
pleading.

“Let me go!” He said,
but his voice had lost some of its edge, some of its energy. “Please, Alan,
mate, let me go. I need to go and… and… they… they…” He started to sob. He was
still attempting to tug his left arm free, but only half his heart was in it
now. Alan still didn’t let him go. Instead, still balanced in the back of the
fast-moving wagon, he pulled the old man against him, and held him tight,
letting Bert’s sobs bray into his shirt.

James watched for a
moment,
then
turned back to the front, embarrassed at
watching an old man cry, whatever the circumstances. He realised that Heidi was
screaming too, just another noise in the mix, but he had seen that Debbie and
Ryan had been okay, if shocked.

Looking ahead of their
runaway wagon, James realised that Buster was starting to slow again. But there
was no obstacle this time. Instead he saw their destination: The Hut. The horse,
ignoring whatever was happening behind him, had brought them right to the door
of their sanctuary.

As the horse slowed to
a walk, James leapt down from the front of the wagon, his knee giving a twinge
from where he had used it to brace himself against Alan’s fall. He moved up
alongside the horse and, matching his speed, grabbed for the reins. He moved
ahead of the horse, leading him now instead of the other way around, and took
the wagon up to the door of the Hut, shushing him to a halt.

“We’re here,” he
shouted.

Alan looked over at
him and nodded. Andy, who was now
back
on his feet,
looked back down the street they had just travelled down. “They don’t seem to
be following,” he said. “But let’s be quick.” He moved to open the tailgate of
the wagon and started to help Alan lift Bert down.

James watched as Andy
helped the broken form of Bert round towards him. “Don’t leave her? You won’t
leave her, will yer? You’ll bring her, yeah?” he was mumbling to the former
chef.

“Don’t worry, Bert.
I’ll get you in and then I’ll get her myself. I promise.”

“Good lad. Good lad.
You’ll get her. Yeah. You’ll get her, won’t yer? You won’t leave her?”

Andy carried on
reassuring him as they made their way to the door of The Hut. Meanwhile, Alan
and Ryan were helping Debbie down, Heidi clutched in her arms.

“Erm…” a voice sounded
behind him.

James turned. It was
Andy, his hand on the door of the scout building. “Do you have a key?”

Tony only took three
steps alongside Nicola,
then
he pushed her to keep her
running, stopped and turned. Dan and Daz looked at him in surprise as he faced
them, and tried to stop too. “No! Keep going! Get her to safety!” He flapped a
hand at his shoulder to indicate Nicola. They looked confused for a moment,
then saw him start to raise the shotgun to his right shoulder, nodded, and ran
on.