Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 3): Chloe (A New World) (9 page)

“
H
and the kid over
, Chloë. Seriously, there’s no way this ends well that involves you holding on to that kid. I promise you that.”

Chloë held on to Kesha. The seven islanders stood opposite her, guns raised, pointed right at her. By her side, the fallen bodies of their comrades—the ones Chloë had taken down—had finally gone completely silent. Choked on their own blood.

“There’s a good way and a bad way out of this,” Laura said. She was at the front of the group of seven. She had her gun pointed right towards Chloë’s head. Chloë wondered how she’d got hold of all these guns. They only took guns when they were going out scouting beyond Bardsey Island.

They must’ve been planning this for a long time. That unsettled Chloë.

Kesha cried a little in Chloë’s arm. Chloë held her tighter. It was as if the whole situation became all the more real when Kesha cried. Like the truth of the situation Chloë was in built up. Her mouth was dry. The smell of sweat cut through the fresh air.

She just wanted to be alone again.

Alone with Kesha.

Alone in these woods.

“What is it, kid?” Laura asked. She took a few steps closer to Chloë. Kept her gun pointed at her head at all times. “What’s binding you to little Kesha here?”

“You—you killed the other babies.”

Laura frowned. “I killed the other babies?”

“Your people. Garth. He—”

“What happened with Garth was a terrible mistake. Fucking tragedy, ’scuse my French.” She didn’t look from her expressions like she was all that upset. “But anyway. Garth? What makes you think we’re even on Garth’s side?”

Chloë went to answer. But she thought about Laura’s words for a few seconds. She had a point. What made Chloë so sure she was with Garth?

“Look, I apologise for what happened back there. And come to think of it, I can see why you’d be scared. Why you’d run off like this with Kesha. I can kind of get that.”

She lowered her gun.

“But at the end of the day, this silliness has gotta stop. We’re here to take Kesha back to somewhere safe. To take you back to somewhere safe.”

Chloë swallowed a lump in her throat. Shook her head. “You aren’t.”

“What?”

“You aren’t.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?”

“You… Your people. They shot my dad. They killed… they killed my dad.”

Saying those words out loud were harder than Chloë imagined they could possibly be. Because they made the reality of the situation weigh right down on her shoulders. The truth of matters rear its head.

Dad was dead.

Garth shot Dad dead.

Laura tilted her head to one side. She stuck out her bottom lip, just a little. “Oh, princess. You think your daddy’s dead?”

Chloë frowned. The skin on her arms tingled. “He… I saw—”

“Your daddy’s not dead at all,” Laura said. “Old hard nut’s very much alive. Not in the good books of any of our people after what he did to Garth, I’ll give you that. But he’s alive.”

All of the surroundings faded into the background. All Chloë could think about were those words. Those final words.

He’s alive.

“We can take you back to him. All of us, we can walk away from here together. There’s been a lot of… of mess, these last couple of days. I get that. I get that it’s scary and I get that it’s horrible. But we can put it behind us. Start afresh. After all, people like you are the future of this world, right?”

Chloë’s thoughts were dulled. She didn’t know what to say, how to react. Her dad was alive. He’d done something to Garth, not the other way round.

The gunshots. He must’ve fought back somehow.

But then Chloë swore Garth came running after her…

Unless that was someone else.

Unless it was Dad, all along.

Unless Laura was lying about this whole thing.

“Think about it,” Laura said. A few of the other group members around her lowered their guns, too. And the atmosphere suddenly shifted to something more friendly. More amicable. “Just think about it.”

“Why do you want her so bad?”

Laura’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Kesha. Because—because this isn’t about me. None of this is about me. It’s about Kesha. Why do you want her so bad? More than anyone else?”

Laura held Chloë’s stare. And for a few seconds, Chloë genuinely lost the sense that she was looking into the eyes of another person. She was just staring into an empty shell.

“There’s things… things you don’t understand.”

“Then tell me.”

“There’s things you can’t understand. You’re too young to—”

“I’ve killed people. I’ve watched people I love die. I’ve led people halfway across the country to get to safety. I’m not too young for anything.”

A fake smile stretched across Laura’s face. She shrugged. Nodded. “You’re right. Kesha is important.”

“Why’s she important?”

Laura looked back at the group surrounding her. Looked back at the silent trees.

And then she turned to Chloë again. “The old leadership. The High Lord. He knows something. Him, and a few others.”

“Knows what?”

“We understand it a little. But not completely. Just know that when we do, we’ll take it a lot more seriously than he ever has.”

Chloë narrowed her eyes. She didn’t know what to say in return to Laura. Didn’t know what to think about any of this. It didn’t make sense. “My dad. Is he…”

“He’s completely fine,” Laura said. She chanced another couple of steps. Gun still by her side. “Not a scratch on him. I promise.”

Chloë looked at Kesha. Felt her weighing down her left arm. She thought about it. Thought about stepping towards Laura. About handing Kesha over. About ending this, once and for all.

“Sorry,” she said.

She took a few steps back. Away from Laura. Kept Kesha in front of her. Not to protect herself, but to protect both of them. Because she knew they wouldn’t shoot Kesha. None of them would shoot Kesha.

Laura lifted her gun. The rest of the group all lifted their guns. “Don’t do this, kid.”

“You won’t shoot.”

“Not now. You’re right about that.”

Laura edged closer. Her eyes were bloodshot, red with anger.

“But I promise you, you can try running. You can try getting the hell away. But we will catch you. And when we catch you and take Kesha away from you, I’ll put a bullet through you myself. That’s a promise.”

Chloë picked up her pace. Kept on walking backwards. She stumbled on some upturned roots of a tree. She couldn’t do this. She had to turn and run.

But if she turned, Laura would shoot her.

“Drop the kid,” Laura said. “Put her down. Then run. I’ll have a heck of a lot of fun hunting you down—”

Something happened.

Something Chloë didn’t understand.

One second, Laura was standing in front of her.

The next, something drifted into Chloë’s vision. Flew past Laura. Silenced her. Silenced everyone.

A sense that something wasn’t right filled the woods. Everyone went silent.

Terror widened in Laura’s eyes.

She looked down at her torso. Looked at the blood spilling out of the front of her body. Spraying out of her sides.

She stumbled to the left, and the top half of her body split away from the bottom.

Torn guts splattered out onto the forest floor.

Chloë stared at Laura’s fallen body. Silent. The only sound in this woods was the thumping heart in her ears.

She looked up at the rest of the group. Saw the fear in their eyes, too. The misunderstanding.

And then she saw the thing standing behind the man on the left.

Stepping towards him.

Her stomach sank.

Her body tightened.

Tall.

Covered in tarlike flesh.

Long, sharp nails on the ends of its fingertips; piercing teeth sticking out of its gums.

It wasn’t a man.

It wasn’t a monster.

It wasn’t even a thing

But it was something she’d seen before. Not for a long, long time, but something she’d seen.

It was an Orion.

C
hloë didn’t stand
and wait to watch the Orion tear another of the group apart.

She clambered back up the tree. Clambered towards the top of it. She didn’t have her right shoe on anymore. Didn’t want it getting in the way. All the time she climbed, she heard shouting. She heard gunfire. She heard screams.

But more than anything, she heard those growls.

She heard the growls that accompanied the splitting apart of insides.

The choking on blood.

The snapping of skulls.

She wasn’t sure how she got to the top of the tree so promptly. She wasn’t sure how she’d got to the top of it at all. She was on autopilot. Gripped by the fear, by the confusion.

An Orion.

She thought back to the last time she’d seen an Orion. A long time ago when she was with her old group, back when a bad man called Mr Fletch—who did something weird to people to make them into become monster-hunters, launched his Orions on her old home. Only those Orions were trained to attack people, not monsters.

From the sound of the chaos below, so too was this Orion.

She held on to Kesha. Closed her eyes. She could hear people still screaming down below. Could smell blood in the air. Kesha started to cry, so Chloë just held on to her even closer. “It’s okay,” she whispered, her voice shaking as the Orion sunk its teeth into one of the men’s torsos, ravaged his guts while he was still alive.

“It’ll—it’ll be okay,” she whispered again.

She stroked Kesha’s head and sensed her calming down. So she kept on doing that, kept on stroking her head. She was going to be okay. Both of them were going to be okay.

Chloë didn’t believe that. Not really.

But she had to keep on telling herself that or she’d lose her mind.

She couldn’t think of much, but one thing she did think about was her old group. Riley, Jordanna, the people she’d been with at the Manchester Living Zone; the people she’d spent the first months of the end of the world surviving with before she went her own way. If a human-hunting Orion was here, then what did it mean for them? She didn’t think about Riley or Jordanna much. Thinking about them brought back too many painful memories.

But it was hard to imagine a world where they were gone.

She heard shuffling. Heard shuffling, right down below. She looked at the bottom of the tree. A man was dragging himself along. He was covered in guts, seemingly the guts of someone else. His right leg had been snapped in two and was flooding blood. A bone stuck through his flesh.

The Orion had its back to him.

Chloë watched him shuffle along. Watched him struggle. And as much as she didn’t like Laura or her group for trying to take Kesha away, for trying to kill her, and for killing those other children, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for this man. She wanted him to get away. Because nobody deserved to die the way the Orions killed you. Nobody.

She held her breath.

The man winced as he dragged his weight further through the grass.

The Orion turned around.

Looked to the bottom of the tree.

Chloë didn’t want to watch the next thing. She didn’t want to watch anything at all.

But she saw the Orion stomp over to that man.

Saw it stamp down on his snapped leg.

Stamp it right into the ground, the man screaming, wailing, begging for his life.

Then the Orion spun the man around onto his back.

Picked him up with one hand, by the neck.

It lifted the man into the air. Lifted him so the Orion’s dark eyes were pointed right in Chloë’s direction, in Kesha’s direction.

Chloë made herself smaller. Shuffled along the edge of the high branch. Kept on stroking Kesha’s head. Kept on whispering to her, telling her everything was going to be okay.

The man kept on screaming as the Orion held him by the neck.

And then the Orion tightened its grip and cut off the man’s air supply.

The man struggled. Kicked out his leg and his snapped leg. His face turned red, and then purple. Foam bubbled out of the side of his mouth. His eyes grew bigger, whiter.

Chloë heard something burst.

And then she saw the man’s neck cave in.

The Orion scrunched its fingers together. Ground down on the man’s spinal cord until it was nothing but powder.

The man’s lower body fell to the ground.

His head stayed in the Orion’s hand.

The light in his eyes was gone.

Chloë’s teeth chattered. She could see that the Orion was looking right up here, right in her direction. She wanted to close her eyes, as if that’d make her less visible somehow.

She wanted to just close her eyes and pretend she was back on Bardsey Island, back with her dad, back when everything was okay.

But she wasn’t.

She was up a tree with a baby staring down at an Orion.

The Orion stared back at her.

She waited. Waited for it to make its move. To snap the tree in half. To send the pair of them tumbling down towards the ground.

She heard it sniff the air. Sniff at the air like a dog around food.

She kept her focus.

Held her stare.

Kesha kept quiet.

Chloë wasn’t sure how to explain what happened next. Even weirder than the fact an Orion was alive out here itself.

But something happened. Something very strange.

The Orion lowered its head.

Looked around at the mess of dark blood, torn body parts, cracked bones.

It looked around at the dead beneath, and then it disappeared into the trees.

Vanished, like it had never even been here in the first place.

Chloë didn’t take her eyes off the spot the Orion disappeared into.

She didn’t stop stroking Kesha’s head.

She didn’t stop telling her everything was going to be okay.

K
yle pulled back
his aching fist and rubbed it between his fingers.

The High Lord’s palace was at the brightest it’d been all day. The sun was setting towards the west, which always brought a beam of light into here. It was a clear evening, too. It’d been a beautiful day all round.

Beautiful enough for Kyle to forget about the things he’d done. The things he’d had to do.

He looked at the High Lord. His nose was bloody. His eyes were blackened. He was an old man, but Kyle never really saw him that way. Not until now. He really looked down and out. Like the world had stamped on him repeatedly.

Well now he knew what it felt like. Now he understood how it really felt to have the world turn its back on him.

To the left of the chambers, the High Lord’s Rottweiler, Brutus, barked as it saw its owner being beaten up. It was in a cage though. Standing on its back legs, doing all it could to break out and savage the High Lord’s attackers, sure. But in a cage.

The bark was worse than the bite.

Not in this case.

But it wasn’t getting a chance to bite anytime soon. Nobody in here was.

By the door, three armed guards—Kyle’s people—looked out down the hill. Bardsey Island was a lot quieter now. Lot less riffraff since yesterday’s purge. Fewer babies wailing, fewer sounds of camaraderie in the markets, things like that.

But that was just the thing. The place wasn’t supposed to be some faux-cheery hotbed for the world to co-exist. It wasn’t some holiday camp.

It was special.

“How does it feel?”

Kyle turned around. Looked back at the High Lord. He wasn’t expecting to hear him speak. Not so soon after he’d been beating him up. “What?”

The High Lord spat away some blood. He was tied to the posts of his bed by both of his old, chicken-skin arms. He was naked. Completely naked. Smaller cock than Kyle thought he’d have. No wonder he sat up here like some kind of prophetic leader. Over-compensating, that’s all it was.

He looked up at Kyle through his bruised eyes. And Kyle saw nothing in those eyes but hate. Detestation. Just like Dad used to look at him and Laura when he was about to lock them under the stairs. Just like he looked at them before he stuffed them into the washing machine, together. Switched it on.

“Taking this place. Winning… winning people over. How does it feel?”

Kyle tutted. Shook his head. “You know that’s not the endgame here.”

“You wanted power. You always wanted power. But there’s a difference between being the one in power and… and leading.”

Kyle nodded. “Enlighten me.”

“When you’re in power, it’s through fear. When you lead, it’s… it’s through trust.”

“Well, funny thing,” Kyle said, feeling his face heat up. He crouched right beside the High Lord. “I never trusted you. Not really. And neither did everyone who revolted against you. So what does that make your leadership?”

The High Lord looked like he wanted to answer.

He couldn’t even open his lips.

Kyle stepped away from the bed. He put a hand on the gun in his pocket. Stretched his fingers around it. Brutus kept on barking. Barking so loud it was giving Kyle a headache. “Can’t you shut that fucking thing up?”

“That fucking thing is my dog. My pet. And it hasn’t done a thing to deserve being locked away like that.”

“I don’t give a shit whether it’s done a thing to deserve it or not,” Kyle said. “I just want it to shut the hell up.”

Kyle glared back across the room at the High Lord. The High Lord didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look at Brutus. Didn’t do a thing to stop the barking.

He was testing him. Testing his patience so much.

But Kyle couldn’t kill him. Not yet. Not until he knew. For sure.

“How can you pretend you’re so high and mighty yet keep a secret like the one you kept from all of us?” Kyle asked.

The High Lord’s already tired eyes narrowed. “What are you talking ab—”

“Don’t bullshit me. Not now. Now… now really isn’t the time for bullshit. People are still dying out there. People are turning. And not just into the zombies. Turning into… into other things, too.”

“The parasites,” the High Lord said.

“And you knew. You knew, all along, that we might be able to stop it.”

“None of us know that—”

“You knew that kids were dying. That people were tearing each other apart. That my brother was…”

Kyle stopped speaking. He turned away. He didn’t want the High Lord to pick up on his weakness. He didn’t want him to know this was all about his brother.

But his evasion was to no avail.

“That’s what all of this is about?” the High Lord said. “Your brother? All of this… this chaos and this mayhem, all because your brother was bitten?”

“He didn’t have to be bitten,” Kyle snapped. He could feel his grip on the situation slipping. Feel himself losing control. “He didn’t have to. Because of what you knew. Because of her.”

The High Lord just stared back into Kyle’s eyes. “I don’t know what you think you’re talking about. But nothing’s bringing Alex back from the dead. Nothing.”

Brutus kept on barking.

Kyle tightened his grip on the gun.

The High Lord was testing his patience. Really pushing him to the edge.

Well, it was time for him to learn that two could play that game.

He started walking over to Brutus’ cage.

“Kyle!”

He stopped. Looked back at the entrance to the High Lord’s palace.

A man stood there. Kevin. He was covered in blood.

Kyle walked back over to him. “What’s… what have you…”

It was only when Kyle got closer that he realised Kevin wasn’t just covered in blood. He was holding something, too. Holding something in his arms.

A few more steps and Kyle realised exactly what it was.

There was a human torso in Kevin’s arms. A body slashed in two around the waist. Just the top half of it. The stomach had been ripped in half. Intestines and innards dangled out onto the tiles.

It was disgusting enough in itself.

But when Kyle saw the face, he threw up, right there and then.

His sister.

His Laura.

“Kyle I’m so sorry,” Kevin said. “We—we found all the search group messed up. In this same condition. Looks like something attacked them—”

“And the girl?” Kyle spat. He still couldn’t process what he was looking at. Still couldn’t accept that his sister was gone. That she was dead.

Kevin shook his head. “Gone. But we did find this.”

He threw a shoe across the High Lord’s chambers. It landed just before Kyle’s feet.

“The other shoe. Same one that Chloë kid left behind.”

When Kyle heard the name “Chloë,” something shifted inside of him. He wasn’t sure what it was. Wasn’t sure why it was. Only he felt a need to do something. A need to do something about that little brat for defying him. For taking the baby away. For taking Kesha away.

Right now, there was only one thing Kyle could do.

He smiled at Kevin. Wiped a tear from his eye as he saw his sister’s dead corpse once more. “Thank you. Have her buried.”

It was time for him to step up.

Time for him to be the man his sister always told him he was too weak to become.

He turned around.

Lifted the gun from his pocket.

Walked over to the yelping, barking Brutus.

Put the gun right up to its head.

“Woah!” The High Lord’s eyes widened. The look of fear on his face stretched.

“Cute,” Kyle said. “We spend hours beating the shit out of you and all this time, we’ve been trying to get to you through the wrong channels.”

“Please,” the High Lord said. Kyle could hear the fear in his voice now. “Brutus. He hasn’t done a thing. There’s no need to hurt him. There’s no—”

“I’ll be the judge of that. But I want to hear it. I want to hear the truth about the girl. Right from your mouth.”

The High Lord shook his head. “Please. Not Brutus. He’s all I’ve got. Please.”

“All you’ve got? Take a look at me. What do you think I have?”

“I never meant for—”

Kyle cocked the pistol.

Pushed the gun right against Brutus’ skull.

“Her mother was bitten!” The High Lord said.

Hearing those words out loud lifted a weight from Kyle’s shoulders. Because he’d suspected it. He’d suspected it all along. The rumours. The rumours about finding Kesha in her mother’s arms, her mother bitten having just given birth to her.

It was true.

It was all true.

But there was something else too.

“All of it,” Kyle said. “The full truth. Say it. Just say it out loud.”

Tears streamed down the High Lord’s face now. He looked weak. Pitiful. The very opposite of a leader. And that’s because he was weak and pitiful, Kyle supposed. That’s because he really was the opposite of a leader.

Kyle lowered the gun. Walked away from Brutus’ side. Brutus didn’t stop barking, but Kyle didn’t care. Not anymore.

He put a hand on the High Lord’s wrinkly old shoulder. “Hey. Hey. I have the best interest of everyone at heart here. You know I do. So please. Just tell me the truth. Tell me how it is.”

Brutus barked.

The High Lord shook his head.

“Tell me how it—”

“She was bitten too.”

“What? Louder.”

“She was bitten too.”

“Who was bitten too? Say her name. Say her—”

“Kesha was bitten too!”

The weight lifted fully from Kyle’s shoulders. The whole world seemed lighter. His sister’s death seemed irrelevant. Because it was true. All the rumours he’d heard, all the rumours he’d fought for, they were all true.

“I suppose that’s the difference between you and me,” Kyle said, walking away from the High Lord’s bed. “You wanted to keep Kesha your little secret. Your little insurance policy. Just in case things fell apart on this island. Then you’d have a reason to stay alive. Knowledge. Knowledge enough to stay alive.”

“That’s never what I—”

“But I see people dying in this world and I see the reality. The reality of what this kid means. Of what we have to do to her. Of how we have to use her.”

“You’re talking crazy.”

“Born of a bitten mother, but alive. Bitten herself, but still alive. Immune. Totally immune. And you kept that from us while people fell.”

“But what the hell do you expect us to do?” the High Lord asked. “What the hell do you expect us to do with a little girl, even if she is imm…”

He stopped speaking. He stopped because Kyle rolled his sleeve up.

“I was bitten six weeks ago. Just two days earlier, I injected myself with some of Kesha’s blood. Just a pinch.”

He rolled his sleeve back down. Smiled at the High Lord.

“I’m not the only one who tested it either.”

The High Lord stared back at him, incredulous.

“So now you know what we need Kesha for. Now you know exactly what we have to take from her.”

“Humans matter more than humanity, Kyle. Don’t you forget that. Humans matter more than—”

“No,” Kyle said. “I’m not sure that’s true anymore.”

He lifted his gun.

Pointed it at Brutus.

Shot the yappy mutt three times in its head.

“Brutus!”

The High Lord kicked around on his bed. Cried out.

And as Kyle walked towards him, his dog still whimpering in that cage as it tried to cling on to its final moments, he saw the pain in the High Lord’s eyes. The pain of loss.

“I hope you understand why I’m doing what I’m doing,” he said.

He pressed the gun to the High Lord’s head.

“Any last words?”

The High Lord looked up at Kyle. His eyes streamed. His lips shook. “You’re nothing but an inbred scumbag. I hope you rot in hell with that whore sister of yours.”

He spat a blood blob into Kyle’s face.

Then, he closed his eyes.

Kyle was tempted to pull the trigger. Tempted to silence this fucker once and for all, right there and then.

Instead, he took a few deep breaths.

Lowered his gun.

He kept on taking those deep breaths as he uncuffed the High Lord from the bed.

As he dragged his frail old body to the ground.

He kept on taking them as he stamped on the High Lord’s head.

As he kicked his skull into the floor.

Kicked the few real teeth he had left into the back of his throat.

He smashed the High Lord’s nose with his heel. He booted his eyes until they covered with blood. He kicked his throat, feeling the tiles beneath his neck with the tip of his toe.

He kept on kicking, stamping, jumping down again and again until—

Kyle slipped over. Fell back onto the floor.

He felt blood seep between his fingers. Felt something sticking to the bottom of his shoe.

When he looked down, he saw the front of the High Lord’s skull had caved in.

His face was unrecognisable.

He adjusted his collar and stood back up. Wiped the mashed brains and fragments of skull onto the High Lord’s naked chest.

And then he walked over towards the door, where his guards looked on, mouths wide.

“We find that girl,” Kyle said. “We find Kesha.”

“What about the other girl?”

Kyle narrowed his eyes at Kevin. “The other girl?”

Kevin pointed back into the High Lord’s chamber. “The shoe. Chloë.”

Kyle nodded. He looked out of the chambers. Looked down the island, where wooden crosses now decorated the slope. Looked at the sea bashing against the rocks.

“Kill her,” he said.