Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost (4 page)

‘Afterwards, I looked at the car to see Caine – he’d crawled into the back, and was watching the whole thing from behind the front seat. He didn’t try and help. He didn’t do anything. I know what happened to my family – I stabbed my mum and my kid sister through the head and I eventually got the pleasure of shooting my stepdad through the chest.’

I placed my hand on Misfit’s knee and squeezed. There was nothing I could say to that. But I knew then that knowing what had happened to your family was definitely worse than not knowing.

11.30pm

I’m in bed. Charlotte is next to me. Kay was well enough to sit up and drink a little broth Misfit made with a rabbit he caught in the fields out the back. We made a fire in the back garden and cooked it out there. Fresh cooked food is always preferable to cold, stale goods that have been sitting in a cupboard or on a supermarket shelf for over a year at least. She still isn’t talking much but one step at a time and all that. At least she doesn’t need constant monitoring now, so we can all get to sleep at night.

Hopefully it won’t be long before we’re on the road again.

December 30, 9am

We’re all bleary-eyed after what happened in the early hours of this morning. It started when me and Charlotte were woken up by the sound of shouting.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Charlotte as the pair of us sat bolt upright in bed.

I held my breath, waiting to see if the shouting would start up again. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before I heard, ‘I SAID, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?’ It was Kay’s voice, and it was coming from her bedroom.

Me and Charlotte darted out of bed and, in my case wearing nothing but a t-shirt and my pants, sprinted across the landing. Misfit and Clay were already in Kay’s room by the time we got there. They were standing just inside the doorway, their mouths and eyes wide, and me and Charlotte almost ploughed into them in our haste. There, further in the room and standing over Kay was a figure.

In the light from the gas lamp Clay was holding, I could see it was a woman with close cropped greying hair. She wore black, one piece motorcycle leathers and – everyone’s favourite zombie apocalypse shoe of choice – black four inch spike heeled boots. She would have looked like Cat Woman’s middle-aged mother if it hadn’t have been for the purple wire-framed glasses on her nose. All I could see of Kay was her head poking out from the quilt. She didn’t dare move, what with the woman’s knife positioned right between her eyes.

‘Whoa put the knife down, hey?’ said Clay, his hand extended towards the stranger. ‘Then we can talk about this.’

‘Talk about this?’ I said. ‘Nothing to talk about other than, who the fuck are you?’ I said, repeating Kay’s reasonable question that was still to be answered. ‘Oh and get the fuck away from my friend and out of our house!’

‘She’s bitten,’ said the woman, ignoring me. ‘She needs dealing with.’ She raised her knife, ready to strike.

‘Whoa!’ I yelled, hoping my exclamation would be enough to halt her blade as I knew I couldn’t get across the room in time to tackle her.

The woman’s eyes flicked in my direction just long enough for Kay to grab her wrist and push her arm upwards. Misfit rushed in and grasped the woman around the waist and he pulled her away from the bed. The woman wriggled furiously in Misfit’s grip and I worried she would reach back and stab him. Clay lunged towards the pair of them but the woman swung the knife at him. While she was preoccupied with Clay, Kay dragged herself from under the covers. On unsteady feet she grabbed the wrist of the woman’s knife arm. Clay grabbed her free wrist to prevent her from batting Kay away, while Kay prised the knife from her hand. She turned the blade so that it pointed at the woman’s chin. ‘Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?’ she said, and I was confident we’d get an answer this time.

‘For god’s sake, how have you people managed to survive this long? Haven’t you learnt anything? She’s bitten! She’ll turn and she’ll rip–’

‘Let me stop you there.’ The woman had been straining, trying to pull herself free from Misfit and Clay while she spoke, but at my interruption, she stopped and glared at me, though her body remained tense in Misfit’s arms. Clay let go of her wrist now that she had calmed down. ‘Now, I understand that the days of social media are gone,’ I continued. ‘There are no news reports on TV so, chances are, you have no idea what a Human Zombie is.’ I approached the woman so that I stood alongside the blade that Kay held at her throat. ‘I can’t really be bothered to explain. We’ve all just lived through the whole ordeal and it wasn’t fun. But all you need to know is that bite is a human bite not a zombie bite. She’s not infected with the zombie virus. But – just for your information – even if it was a zombie bite, she’s our friend, our responsibility, and you – whoever the fuck you are – have no right to burst in our place in the middle of the night and put a blade through anyone’s brain. You are not part of this group. You can do one!’

‘You expect me to believe that’s not a zombie bite,’ said the woman, staring me down. ‘Look at her; she can hardly stand up she’s so sick. The wound is a putrid mess. She’s infected, alright.’

‘The wound became infected – regular infected, I mean, like,’ said Clay. ‘She didn’t take the antibiotics she needed. But there’s no zombie virus in her body, just your average, everyday bacteria.’

‘So, crazy-leather-clad-night-time-zombie-hunting-warrior-woman there is nothing for you here!’ I said.

‘You’re not infected?’ The woman spoke directly to Kay who was now sitting on the edge of the bed, looking pale and small.

‘That’s pretty much the gist of what we’ve been telling you, fucktard,’ she said in laboured breath while she rested the knife on the bed beside her.

The woman’s body relaxed in Misfit’s grip and after a moment, realising the threat had past, he released her. She stood looking from each of us in turn, her gaze settling on Kay.

‘You’re not infected.’ It had been a statement, not a question and afterwards, she sagged and would have crumpled to the floor if Misfit hadn’t caught her beneath her leather-clad arms. He guided her to the bed where she perched next to Kay. The woman glanced at her. ‘I would’ve killed you. If these people hadn’t of come when they did, I would’ve killed you.’

‘You reckon?’ said Kay. ‘You’d have to get up earlier than that to kill me in my bed.’

‘She’s right,’ I said. ‘Even on her sick bed she would have whipped your arse. So, who are you?’

‘My name… my name is… Elaine but no one has called me by my name for what feels like a very long time. No one’s asked my name in a very long time,’ she said with a resigned smile.

‘You’re alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long have you been on your own?’

Elaine thought for a while. ‘During the outbreak?’

‘Well, whenever.’

‘Erm, well… about ten…’ Elaine pursed her lips and put her head to the side as though thinking hard,’ yeah, ten years, I’d say.’

‘Ten
years
?’ I said, stunned.

‘And that’s how long it’s been since anyone called me by my real name.’

‘I don’t get ya, love,’ said Clay.

‘Pre-outbreak, people called me Suki, when they called me anything at all. Post-outbreak, well, no one’s really stuck around… But in my head, I like to call myself The Cleanser.’

‘The Cleanser?’ I repeated.

‘If I was a super hero, my super hero name would be The Cleanser,’ said Elaine.

‘Um… Ok then,’ I said. ‘So, Elaine, what are you doing in our current hideout?’

‘I saw your car out front last night when I did my rounds, so I knew there were some new people in the village and I wanted to check you out – to make sure you weren’t bringing the infection from wherever it is you came from. When I found your friend, here, with a bandaged up neck and not looking too bright, I figured she was infected.’

‘So as
The Cleanser
it’s your job to
cleanse
the infection?’ I said.

‘I’m just being proactive. I have a target – at least thirty zombies a day, every day. If I can’t find them where I am, I move on. I’ve been in Bethersden for a few weeks. I was about to move on when I spotted your car.’

‘I’m not being funny, love, but you missed a few,’ said Clay.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, knowing he meant the ones we’d run into at the bungalow. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Fighting a bit of a losing battle, aren’t you?’ said Kay.

‘I know I’m only one woman and thirty zombies a day makes only the slightest dent, hardly noticeable, really. But it’s all I can do. And I do it relentlessly. It’s how I can gain some control over my life and this nightmare. And, you know what I’ve noticed?’ Elaine glanced around at us but no one spoke. I’m not sure any of us cared what Elaine, the nutter, had noticed. ‘The zombies are getting weaker. I think they only have a certain life – or death – span. Even if they eat – and there is less and less fresh meat for them now that there aren’t so many survivors – they’re decomposing. Their bodies are rotting and getting weaker and weaker.’

‘You think the zombies will die off, so to speak?’ said Clay.

‘Yes, I do,’ said Elaine. ‘I’m not sure how long it will take – another year or so, maybe – but they will die off. We, as the last of the humans, have a duty: number one, not to get bitten and prolong the problem and, number two, to kill as many of them as we can each and every day to speed up the outcome.’

‘One of the ways I managed to stay a human is that I don’t go looking for trouble,’ I said. ‘I only kill when I need to kill. I have a problem with killing for killing’s sake.’

‘And it’s a bloody stupid idea,’ added Kay. ‘Don’t forget that.’

I stifled a giggle at Kay’s comment.

‘You might think that now but you’ll learn,’ said Elaine. ‘And I refuse to give up just because something looks impossible.’

‘That’s a great outlook, sweetie,’ said Charlotte, tucking her long curly hair behind her ears and practically skipping across the room to take one of Elaine’s hands and give it an encouraging squeeze.

‘And if you think I enjoy it,’ said Elaine, looking at me. ‘You’re wrong. I want to make the world a safe place for the last of the humans so we can have the chance to breed and to repopulate and reclaim our world. It might be baby steps but it’s all I can do on my own.’

‘Yeah, fair enough,’ I said. ‘But you can’t take control of other’s lives in order to do it. Infected or not, it would have been our call.’

‘Right, this has all been enlightening and as much as I like randomness,’ began Kay, ‘the excitement of super heroes trying to murder me in my sleep has done me in. So could you all fuck off!’

The sun had risen enough that its weak winter rays filtered through the windows and its light competed with the gas lamp I carried down to the living room. I turned the lamp off to conserve its energy and I placed it on the sideboard beside the sofa. I was keen to herd Elaine out the door as soon as possible but she hung back at the bottom of the stairs so, too tired to stand, I perched against the low back of the sofa. I never understood why anyone would want one of those sofas with a low back. What do you rest your head against while watching TV? Give me a slumpy high backed sofa any day. Comfort over style for me, all the way.

I gazed at Elaine and bit my lip. Despite her good intentions, there was something I didn’t like about her. ‘You got far to go?’ I asked her after a moment, hoping to encourage her on her way.

‘I’m staying in a flat over the post office in the village,’ she replied, her knife in hand as she prepared to head out. ‘I’ve been spending a lot of my time in Ashford,
cleansing
. But I make it a habit to stay out of big towns at night.’

‘Ashford got much of a zombie problem?’ asked Misfit.

‘Towns are always more populated than the countryside,’ said Elaine. ‘And I’ve noticed a few large hordes pass through. It’s as if as they get weaker they’re teaming up – strength in numbers and all that. It’s like a survival instinct, one even more sophisticated than the need to consume flesh, is kicking in and uniting the filthy buggers.’

‘Large? How large? Anything we should worry about?’ I asked.

Elaine shrugged. ‘Well, let’s just say they’re too large for me to deal with on my own. I’ve had to abort mission on more than one occasion. I don’t like doing that.’

‘Well, keep chipping away,’ I said – sort of sarcastically.

‘Yeah and good luck to you, like,’ said Clay. ‘I can appreciate the “can do” attitude, you know?’

‘Thanks.’

As we talked I had shifted so that I brought one of my legs up and I was now sitting sideways on the back of the sofa. From where I perched, I could see everyone’s reflections in the blank TV screen, like they were the stars in a soap opera or something… this wasn’t really happening, zombies weren’t real and it’s just some TV show that I could switch off at any time and resume my real life. I glanced at Misfit’s reflection. He stood at the foot of the stairs with his hand on the banister, looking at the others through the stands of fair hair that fell into his face.

I miss TV. To be honest, there wasn’t ever anything worth watching. Well, hardly ever. Just boring soaps and cooking programmes and rubbish like
The X-Factor
or
Big Brother
. I would moan about them but, I’ll admit, I used to get sucked in to them. I used to love
The Next Top Model
programmes. I don’t know why but I used to be quite obsessed about that show, probably because I’m nothing like the girls on it. I could never have been a model. I was always thin enough, I suppose, even before the apocalypse but, I don’t know, I always hated to see myself in photos. I was always the one that was caught pulling a funny face – and not intentionally – or looking really awkward like I hadn’t quite grown into my own skin.