Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 3): Chloe (A New World) (14 page)

C
hloë didn’t think
. She didn’t speak. She didn’t even see anything.

She just walked.

Her vision was blackened. The bag that Kyle’s people put over her head when she’d handed Kesha over was still in place. She could taste bitterness at the back of her tongue. Blood, or phlegm, or both. Around her, she heard footsteps. Footsteps walking alongside her, cracking through twigs beneath.

She had no idea where she was. She had no idea whether she was close to the island again or far away.

All she knew was that she’d failed.

She’d failed her dad.

She’d failed Kesha.

She’d failed herself.

“Hurry the fuck up, kid.”

She felt someone push into her back. She fell down to her knees. Mud coated her hands, seeped into her grazed legs. She felt a spark of anger ignite inside. She wanted to turn around and gut these people with her bare hands. She wanted to sink her teeth into their necks like she was a monster herself, and rip them to pieces.

But she was on her hands and knees. She was weak.

She’d paid the price for caring.

For trying to get Kesha to safety.

“I said hurry up!”

She felt a kick. Felt it, right on the back of her head. Her head was already aching as it was. Already spinning with pain. Again, that kick made her want to fight. It made her want to make a break for it.

But more than anything, it just reminded her how weak she was, really. She’d pretended she was strong. She’d pretended she could look after others; be there for them.

But that wasn’t true. She’d found that out herself.

She’d handed Kesha over because she thought it might save her dad’s life. Because she couldn’t bear to see him tortured anymore.

And now she wasn’t even sure where he was.

She felt a hand behind drag
ging
her back up. And then something happened. The blindfold came away from her eyes. It wasn’t light out. Middle of the night now. The only light came from the torchlights of the islanders. Three of them were shining right at Chloë.

When Chloë’s eyes adjusted, she saw Kyle standing right in front of her.

“You made the right move. But truth be told, it wasn’t a good enough move. You’d already taken us on a wild fucking goose chase around Wales and England. You understand the inconvenience you caused us. Right?”

Chloë didn’t know what to say. Her lips were dry. She knew that if she did speak, she’d probably say something Kyle didn’t want her to hear.

She heard something up ahead. A door clicking. Like a car door. And in the glow of the torchlights, she saw a couple of Range Rovers. They still had the prices in the window. The islanders were climbing into it.

And then she saw Dad.

She tried to step forward but Kyle lifted his hand, stopped her. Dad’s eyes were completely swollen over. He was being dragged along, barely any life left in his limp, weak body.

“Your dad’ll be okay,” Kyle said. “He’s a tough man. He made it this far, didn’t he?”

Chloë felt tears building in her eyes. She didn’t like crying in front of other people. She didn’t like begging, either. Jordanna taught her that, back in her old group. She wanted to see them more than ever now.

But she couldn’t help herself begging. “Please. Please don’t hurt him anymore.”

Kyle laughed. “Oh, we aren’t gonna hurt him. Don’t you worry about that, kid. You held up your end of the bargain. You gave the girl back. It’s… it’s something. Not ideal, but it’s something.”

Chloë looked around for Kesha. Searched around for her. Still couldn’t see her. Not at first.

Not until she saw her perched on the lap of one of the islanders in the front seat of the Range Rover.

Chloë swore Kesha looked right at her.

And when she did, she started to cry.

“Thing is, there’s only room for one more, Chlo. And I’ve been thinking. Thinking about how you are with the baby. You’re good with her. You keep her calm. Hell, you kept her safe out here all this time. That’s a good thing. So I figured we could use a hand from you. You could be good company for Kesha. Until we…”

He stopped. Chloë saw a glow in his eyes. He was holding something back.

“Until what?”

He rubbed at his wrist. Smiled, and snapped out of his staring into space. “Not your concern. But the truth is, there’s only one more seat in that Range Rover. And I think I know who I want to be there, as tough a call as that is. Hell, we might change our minds eventually. But for now, well...”

Chloë didn’t understand what was happening until Kyle grabbed her.

Wrapped his hand around her mouth.

Pushed her towards the Range Rover with all of his weight.

Chloë watched as she walked towards Dad, then past Dad. She tried to struggle. Tried to cry out. Tried to scream as they knocked Dad back to the ground, as they started digging around his body, kicking him into the dirt.

She tried to bite and kick and lash out and scream but she couldn’t. She couldn’t because she wasn’t strong enough. She couldn’t because she’d done this. She’d given them up. Dad was going to die. They were going to do something to Kesha.

And her, too.

They were going to do something to her.

She kept on fighting back until they pushed her into the Range Rover.

A couple of the islanders pinned her down across the back seat. Tied the seatbelts around her wrist. Gagged her with a sock, which they pushed so far back into her throat that she started heaving.

She bit down on the smelly, sweaty sock. Tried to keep it from slipping down her throat as another of the islanders taped over her mouth.

And when she was tied up, when she was totally bound to the back of this car, Kyle reached for Kesha. Put her right on Chloë’s lap.

“You look after her while I’m up top,” he said. “But I guess that goes without saying, right?”

He smiled at Chloë. There was still an uneasiness. Like he was just acting. Like he didn’t really like what he was doing, but he was pretending to be somebody else because it made him feel… well, stronger. Chloë could relate to that, in a way.

She looked out of the car door. Saw Dad’s face poking out of the dirt. The two men burying him got into the second Range Rover, along with Kyle.

She saw him open his eyes in the last glimmer of torchlight. Saw him look for her. She wanted him to find her eyes. For him to know that she was alive. But because she wanted him to look at her in that way that told her everything was going to work out okay. One way or another, everything was going to work out okay.

Then somebody slammed the back door.

Switched off the torchlight.

As the Range Rover engine kicked in and drove away from her dad, Chloë swore she saw movement in the trees.

I
t didn’t take long
for Kyle to change his plans for Chloë.

She sat in the mud. Sat there in the middle of the woods. Rain lashed down from the darkness above. She swore she saw movement in the trees. Figures wandering towards her from the middle of nowhere.

And the hardest part of all this was, Chloë didn’t care. She didn’t care about the figures coming her way. She didn’t care about the darkness. She didn’t care about the fact that she was weaponless, that she was without food, trapped in the middle of nowhere.

She’d let Kesha down. She’d let Dad down.

She had no one left.

She stood up. Wandered barefoot through the slushy mud. She’d tried walking back to the place her dad was buried. But she had no idea where that was. Just that it was in the woods somewhere.

She didn’t know whether she was going in the right direction. She didn’t know where he was. How far they’d driven from him.

But that was all Chloë had left. The hope that her dad was still out there, somewhere.

She tried not to think about the figures she’d seen approaching him as they drove away from his buried body. Tried not to picture the monsters crouching down beside him, bursting the veins in his throat with their sharp teeth.

She tried not to think about the things, either. Because if they found him, they’d put him through even more pain. Even more torture.

One bonus? She hadn’t encountered any more Orions since the attack in the woods earlier.

But she knew they were still out there, somewhere. Even if there was only one, they were out there.

That was a reason to be terrified.

She waded further through the trees and tumbled down into the dirt. She started punching at it. Splattering it all over herself. She started to cry. Didn’t like crying, but she was alone now. She was so totally alone.

All this because she’d allowed herself to care.

If she’d just handed Kesha over when Garth first stepped into Margery’s nursery, none of this would’ve happened.

It was all her fault. All her stupid fault.

But then something else dawned on Chloë. Something Dad had told her before the island collapsed.

“You’ve got to learn to bond, Chloë. Humanity is important, but humans are more important.”

She hadn’t understood that at the time. Not totally. Hadn’t really taken long to think about it.

But as she lay there in the mud, rain lashing down onto her, the words started to make a real kind of sense to Chloë.

She thought about the good times she’d had. The times she’d smiled. The times she’d genuinely felt happy since the world collapsed.

All those times she’d been surrounded by other people.

People she cared about.

People she let inside.

Her heart started to pound. She licked the dirt from her lips.

She’d been looking at things wrong. All this time, she’d been looking at things wrong.

She wasn’t alone. She never had been alone. It was only because she’d been too scared to lose anyone else that she only bonded with her dad in the first place.

But people were always there. Maybe they weren’t the best people. Maybe they were people Chloë didn’t really want to be there for her.

But they were.

Humans were more important than humanity.

She pushed herself to her feet. She still felt weak on the legs, shaky all over. She looked around. Back where she’d walked from. Wasn’t sure exactly which direction she’d come from, only that she’d been heading straight along.

But if she could get back and reach the road, she could do what she had to do.

If she could get back and reach the road, she could find them.

She started to walk back. And it hurt. It hurt to walk away from searching for her dad. It hurt to give up on him.

But deep down, Chloë knew she wasn’t giving up on him at all. She was doing what he wanted her to do.

She was doing what she had to do.

As she searched for the muddy tire tracks where the Range Rovers had driven away, Chloë started picking twigs up. She started searching the sticks on the ground. Started tearing the bark away from trees. She could see a plan forming. She could see it forming right in front of her.

She knew what she had to do.

It might kill her. It might not work.

But it was the only thing she had left.

She yanked away some bark from an old tree. Sharpened its edge, sharpened it right down until it was pointed, dangerous.

And she did the same thing again and again with different pieces of bark, sharpening them all down, right down into hand-sized objects.

Weapons.

She stuffed the bark into her pockets. Up ahead, she saw the road. In the moonlight, she saw tire tracks.

She swallowed a lump in her throat. Turned back. Stared into the darkness.

“I’m coming back for you, Dad,” she said. “Kesha, I promise I’m coming back for you.”

Then, after staring back into the woods for a minute, she looked back ahead.

She took a deep breath.

And she walked towards the road.

There was only one direction she was heading in right now.

There was only one thing left to do.

K
yle couldn’t pretend
to be completely at ease about heading back to the island with Kesha in his company.

But the further he travelled, the closer he got back to Bardsey Island, the more comfortable the whole situation became.

The evening sun was low in the sky. They’d stopped a few times on the way back. A few times to take out a few infected. A few other times to take down those parasitic fuckers. Then they’d started having engine troubles. Might as well have walked for the amount of time it’d taken them to reach this point.

But they were close now. They were getting closer and closer to Bardsey Island.

They were getting closer and closer to home.

He looked over his shoulder. Kesha was on the back seat. She hadn’t been fed yet, which probably explained her crying. He found it annoying, really. He’d never been cut out to be a dad. Way too much hassle to worry about for him.

But Kesha needed protecting. Kesha needed keeping alive.

Mostly because of what she had inside her.

He looked back out of the front window as the car rumbled along the road. He couldn’t wait to see Bardsey Island up ahead. He hoped he’d see it soon. “How much further?”

Alec checked the meter. Shrugged. “Not too far.”

“Reckon we’ll be there by nightfall?”

“Probably not.”

“Fuck.”

“We need petrol. If memory serves me correct, there’s a station on the left up here soon.”

“I hope memory does serve you correct,” Kyle said.

He started staring back out of his window. Thinking about what he had to do. It was his sister’s idea, originally, bless her. They’d heard rumours about Kesha spreading around. Rumours that she wasn’t just immune, but she was a cure, too. But they were just rumours. Nothing more than rumours.

And then Kyle had been bitten, and he’d been left with a choice.

See if the rumours were true. 1% chance of survival. 99% chance of death.

Or don’t. Sit back and let himself turn. 100% chance of death.

Funny thing happened when he injected a pinch of Kesha’s blood. He was still here right now.

And so were so many others after putting themselves up to the test.

He knew what he had to do. He knew what the whole island had to do. They had to use Kesha’s blood. They had to distribute it. Sure, it was a shame to hurt the kid. But the truth was, she was doing a greater deed for the good of humanity. For the good of his people. That’s where the High Lord had been wrong all along by dawdling along, keeping her safe, being half-arsed about the whole thing.

Kyle wanted action. He wanted to make a change. Make a difference.

And if it meant killing a kid to save the people around him—the people he cared about—well, so be it.

If it meant hooking the kid up to a machine for life to extract her blood, so be it.

Never thought he’d think that way. Used to always be his sister who thought that way.

But now she was gone, someone had to take her place. To finish what she started.

He felt the engine chugging away as the rain lashed down heavier. Felt the tires struggling in the mud.

“No better route?” Kyle asked.

“Not unless you fancy coming head to head with a shitload of infected.”

Kyle thought about walking through the crowd. About taking each and every bite. He’d already been bitten again. That was the truth. He’d already been bitten and he hadn’t turned.

He was starting to believe in the miracle of Kesha.

He wanted that for everyone on Bardsey Island. Everyone in his community.

The price a girl like that would cost…

The things people would pay—the thing they’d do—for a little bit of her blood…

He knew he could be the most powerful person on the planet if he just kept this baby safe, kept her to himself.

He knew he could be the leader his dad always told him he was too weak to be.

The car rumbled.

Came to a halt.

Kyle and the islanders in the second car were silent. Just for a few seconds.

“What’s happening?”

It took a few wipes of the windscreen for Kyle to realise why Alec had brought the car to a sudden halt.

The car in front was stationary.

“What d’you reckon? Infected?”

Kyle stared out the rain-soaked window. He looked back. Looked at the three people sat around Kesha. Looked into her wide, bright eyes.

And then he zipped his hood up and opened the car door. Gun in hand.

“I’ll check it out,” he said.

He squelched into the mud. The rain seemed even heavier now he was out in it. Visibility was dropping.

He walked over to the side of the Range Rover. Its hazard lights were flashing. Maybe it’d broken down. Shit. Just what they needed. Another five of them squeezed into the back of his Range Rover.

They were so close to home. So close to ending this.

It couldn’t go to shit.

Not now…

Kyle stopped.

He stopped when he saw what was in the car.

The driver, Emma, lay face flat on the steering wheel. Her eyes were wide open.

Blood poured out of an open wound on the side of her neck.

The others were silent, too. All of them covered in blood. All of them wide-eyed. And Kyle didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand how something like this could happen.

He looked and saw the storage flap at the back of the Range Rover was partly open.

His stomach dropped. He knew what it meant. He’d used those flaps before. There was a way into the car from underneath. A way of sneaking inside if the flap—which doubled as a boot—wasn’t locked properly.

Someone had got inside.

Someone had killed his people.

Someone had—

He heard a bang. Then a cry. A wail. Back at his car.

He looked around. Looked back at his car as the rain lashed down, blocking all visibility of anyone or anything inside it.

He was still. Just for a few seconds.

And then he hurtled towards his Range Rover.

When he reached it, he found Alec choking in the driver’s seat. His gun was gone.

There was a large, sharp piece of wood wedged in his throat.

He spluttered something. Spit and blood dribbled down his chin. His eyes were wide, piercing white. He was looking right at Kyle. Looking at him like he didn’t understand. Like this was all some kind of mistake.

But Kyle didn’t give a fuck about Alec.

He didn’t give a fuck about the rest of the people in the Range Rover, all of them dead, all of them with pieces of wood wedged into their throats, one of them with a bullet between their eyes.

All he cared about was the only person in his party who was gone.

Kesha.

She was gone.

She’d been taken.

He slammed his fist against the steering wheel. The horn blasted. How had this happened? How had someone sneaked into these two cars and taken Kesha away so silently? The kid, Chloë? Surely she wasn’t capable of this. Not on her own. Not without—

He felt a sharp pain split through his right shoulder.

It was hot. Hot and searing. Pins and needles stretched right across his body.

He fell down to his knees, unable to escape the pain. He hit the dirt. Clung on to the Range Rover driver’s door, just to keep himself steady.

When he turned, he saw her running away into the trees. He saw her through the pouring rain. Kesha in her arm.

And as his head went light and dizzy, only one thing filled his mind. Just one.

He had to kill Chloë.

He had to get her and he had to kill her.

Once and for all.