Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 1): Chloe Read online

  She picked the gun out of his right hand. Shoved it inside one of her cloak pockets.

  She took the knife. Compared it with the long, sharp combat knife she’d taken from another group a few weeks ago.

  It wasn’t great in comparison.

  So she threw it back down to the forest floor.

  Kicked some twigs and soil over it. Didn’t want to risk anyone else finding it.

  She stepped away from the man. Walked over to the tent. She pulled the opening aside. Looked over her shoulder to check that the bitten victims hadn’t yet risen. She didn’t want to get stuck in a tent while they were around. Couldn’t gamble getting cornered.

  All this just came natural to her now.

  All these thoughts were just automatic.

  She looked inside. Saw a few half-empty bottles of murky water. Chloë walked over to them. Picked up a few of them. Stuffed them inside the pockets of the cloak. She found a few scraps of cooked animal. Rabbit, or something.

  She took that too. The flies hadn’t got to it yet so that meant it would be okay.

  She grabbed a few other things. Things she needed. A few bullets. A carton of Sunny D—wow, it’d been a while since she’d had a Sunny D. Mum never used to let her or her sister have them. Told them the sugar was bad for their teeth. That it’d turn them orange.

  But Mum wasn’t here anymore.

  So she took the Sunny D and stuffed it in her overflowing pocket.

  She turned. Started to head back out the tent. Figured she’d better get away fast. The dead would be walking again soon. Or some bandits would find this place. The woods were safe—safer than the roads—but there were still bandits everywhere. Nasty people. Of course, everyone was nasty. Everyone had to be nasty to survive.

  But some people living in this world were especially nasty.

  She’d learned that the hard way.

  The scars on her face a constant reminder.

  She cast aside the memory. Or the memories of the things that had happened to her. The things that had turned a girl who was barely in her teens into someone much more mature. Someone who’d been forced into growing up in order to survive.

  She started to leave the tent.

  Then she saw something.

  A book. A hardcover book resting on the floor of the tent.

  She leaned over to it. Squinted. Harry Potter. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. She’d never read that one. She’d read the first one and loved it. Halfway through the second one when the world collapsed.

  She knew this was the third one. But she could just pretend she’d finished the second one and start reading this one.

  She reached down. Stuffed it inside her pocket, which was at bursting point.

  Turned to the front of the tent.

  She saw movement.

  Saw a shadowy silhouette move outside the tent.

  She stood still. Stood completely still. Her heart picked up. She took a few deep breaths of the air. Even though it smelled of rot, she was so used to it now that it didn’t bother her.

  She kept completely still.

  As long as the monster didn’t groan, she’d be okay.

  Because groaning would alert the others.

  Groaning was the way they spoke to each other.

  She watched the monster stumble over towards the other fallen dead.

  Saw their silhouettes as the opening to the tent fluttered in the breeze.

  She watched them stand. Watched chunks of flesh fall from their bones. Watched them wander aimlessly like the flies buzzing around them. One of them—the woman—stumbled where the other monster had ripped a chunk out of her leg.

  An image flashed into Chloë’s mind. An image of the death she’d watched. The struggling. The way the monsters had eaten these people alive.

  A part of her felt bad. A part of her knew she could’ve helped. A part of her knew she hadn’t had to leave these people to die. To trap them.

  But another part of her knew what happened when she trusted people.

  Another part of her knew what happened whenever she allowed herself to get close to anyone.

  Or let anyone close to her.

  Bad things happened.

  Bad things happened that she couldn’t let happen again.

  Ever.

  She turned around.

  Walked to the back of the tent.

  Lifted the knife and sliced the material open.

  She crept out of the back of the tent. Scanned the floor for loose twigs, fallen leaves, anything that might make a sound.

  Clutched her pockets so nothing inside them rattled.

  Clutched her knife.

  She looked back over her shoulder. Looked at the monsters. The chubby man who’d chased her. The glassy look in his eyes. The dead look.

  And the other two. The blond man. The ginger woman. The ones she’d led the monsters right to. Now, shuffling around their tent, desperate to break free in their undead forms.

  She looked at them. Felt pity for them. Wanted to put them out of their misery.

  But she couldn’t risk it.

  She couldn’t risk anything she didn’t need to. Not anymore.

  She turned back around.

  Swallowed a lump in her dry throat.

  And she crept past the trees, away from the camp, away from the monsters, and into the vast expanse of the forest.

  THREE

  Chloë pointed the dimming torch at the Harry Potter book and tried to focus.

  The darkness outside was thick and tangible. The weather was much cooler than it had been earlier that day. That was just the way it worked. Warm in the day, freezing at night. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do in winter. Last winter, she’d had somewhere to stay for the bulk of the time. People she’d travelled with. People she’d trusted.

  She wasn’t sure she’d have that same luxury this year.

  But she tried not to think about the cold. Just about the book. She was on Chapter Two. She’d just been getting into it. It seemed spookier than the first two books. But then she’d heard howling well into the distance, and when she’d looked out at the woods, she swore she saw movement.

  She swore she saw movement every single night in this dark, vast woods.

  But she just had to try to focus.

  Just had to try to get through it.

  She’d found a decent place to rest a few weeks back. The inside of a massive tree. She didn’t know the kind of tree—Dad used to be good at identifying trees, and he helped teach her the names of a few. But her dad wasn’t here anymore. Not dead. Well, at least she hoped he wasn’t dead. But he hadn’t been in Preston when the outbreak of the monsters had started. He hadn’t been with Chloë, her mum, her sister, when the undead started walking.

  He’d been at the other side of the country. Lorry driving for Warburtons. The people who made bread and biscuits.

  She hoped he hadn’t made the mouldy biscuits she’d been forced into eating earlier, because the sour taste of it clung to her lips.

  She swallowed back a sickly taste. At least she’d eaten. At least she’d had something to drink. Sunny D. Sweet, thick, but it was something. And at least she was inside the bark of this tree. At least she was out of sight of the rest of the world.

  At least she hoped she was.

  Sitting here with her torchlight.

  The only light in the forest that wasn’t the moonlight, which the clouds suffocated.

  She hoped nobody else could see her.

  She clenched her teeth together to stop them rattling. She was cold. So cold. Didn’t help that she felt sick. She tried sipping on a bit of water but she didn’t want to throw it up. She’d done that a while back. It’d been such a waste. She didn’t want to waste anything else.

  Because wasting supplies meant needing more supplies.

  And needing more supplies meant taking more supplies.

  From other people.

  She listened to the wind brush through the trees. Saw the dark fingers of the branches sway in the breeze like teasing claws. She thought back to earlier that day. To the people she’d trapped. Perhaps if she’d just asked them for help, things would’ve been different. Maybe they’d have let her into their camp. Given her some of their water. Shared food with her. Looked after her.

  But she thought back to all her other experiences on the road.

  Not a single one of them matched up with that.

  She felt the memories of the recent past invade her consciousness. Felt her heartbeat pick up. No. She couldn’t allow herself to remember. Because remembering made her weak. Remembering made her a little girl again, and she couldn’t be a little girl if she wanted to live.

  The rope.

  The bikers.

  Her mum.

  No!

  She looked back at Harry Potter. The book shook in her hand. She could barely focus on the words, but she just had to. Anything but remembering the past. Anything but remembering the things she’d seen.

  The things she’d done.

  She read another paragraph. But the howling distracted her once again. It seemed to be getting closer. Probably wolves. Or just dogs. Pet dogs that didn’t have anyone to look after them, not anymore. Pet dogs that went from being loving animals to wild creatures.

  Creatures Chloë sometimes had to deal with.

  To survive.

  To keep herself alive.

  She found herself drifting again. Thinking about her dad. He’d always told her and her sister, Elizabeth, that they could get a dog some day. Mum was never sure because she got allergies, but sometimes Mum said stuff just so the pair of them didn’t get their hopes up, then went and did the opposite for a surprise. That was one of the many things Chloë loved about her mum.

  Sh
e reached into her pocket like she always did when she was afraid. Then she remembered her mum’s necklace wasn’t there. It hadn’t been for a long time.

  It wasn’t the exact same locket her mum had worn when she’d died seven months ago anyway—the one Chloë had given to her for an early Christmas present. Stole it from a shop in the early days of the dead when it was just her and her mum and another group. It was one a man called Riley had given her. Riley was the leader of the last group she’d been with. He was a good man. He’d given it to Chloë to remember her mum by.

  But Chloë knew the truth of the necklace.

  She pulled her hand out of her pocket and cleared her throat. She tried not to remember the past. Tried not to remember what she’d done.

  It was gone. There was nothing she could do to change history. Not anymore. Not ever.

  She heard movement outside. Footsteps. Instinctively, she flicked the torchlight off. Huddled back as far as she could against the damp bark. Held her breath. Sat there in total darkness, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban still in hand.

  A knife in her other hand.

  She hadn’t meant to hurt her old group. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. And Riley had forgiven her for what she’d done. He’d forgiven her and they’d all moved on.

  But more bad things had happened.

  Bad things that led to the scars on Chloë’s face.

  The pain between her legs.

  The mark around her neck.

  Bad things had happened. And they’d made her realise that she couldn’t be around people anymore. She couldn’t trust anyone because whenever she trusted someone, they went away.

  Or whenever she trusted someone, they died.

  Died, because Chloë was forced into doing something bad.

  Died, because Chloë just wanted to live.

  She listened to the footsteps pass by. Heard the howling of the wolves echo through the woods.

  She held on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, her dad was still out there somewhere. Alive.

  She held on to the hope that she’d be with him again some day. She’d see him again some day. Because he was the only person Chloë could ever trust. The only person who’d ever understand Chloë.

  The only person she had left.

  But she knew that he was gone.

  She knew she’d never find him.

  She wouldn’t even know where to start.

  Light split the sky as the moon emerged from behind a thick grey cloud. The tips of the trees were illuminated by its light, bringing Chloë’s attention to all kinds of movement, all kinds of shuffling and shaking and twitching and turning.

  She thought she wanted the moonlight. Thought she felt safer in it. Until it was actually here, and she felt exposed. Like she was standing on a stage in a spotlight.

  She stared up at the moon. Listened to the howling. Listened to the footsteps.

  Watched the clouds creep over the moon.

  Cover the first quarter of it.

  Then half.

  Then three-quarters.

  She waited for the darkness and she thought about her dad. Thought about her mum. Thought about her sister.

  All the people she’d loved.

  All the people she’d lost.

  And then the cloud completely covered the moon and trapped Chloë in the pitch black again.

  Alone with her thoughts.

  Alone with her memories.

  Alone.

  FOUR

  Alfie Clyne heard the footsteps echoing down the corridor and he knew his time was almost up.

  He sat in the corner of the cold, dark cell. Outside, he could hear the hounds barking, lashing at their leads in a desperate effort to break free. He could hear laughter. Glasses clinking together. The occasional peppering of gunfire.

  Closer to home, he could hear the sobbing of his fellow prisoners.

  The pained cries of the captives.

  The chattering of his own teeth.

  He listened to the footsteps approaching. Listened to them echo against the tiled walls of the inside of this room. It obviously used to be some kind of storage facility, but the lifts had been deactivated and turned into cells; the spare rooms had been emptied and fitted with metal cage doors.

  Alfie Clyne had been in one of those cells for months.

  He’d lost count of how many.

  He’d also lost count of how many prisoners had been taken out of the cells in that period.

  How many hadn’t come back.

  He felt piss trickling down his chapped leg. Felt the sores along his cuffed wrists, his cuffed ankles. He knew they were infected. They had been for quite some time. Scorching hot pains stretching right into his hand, right to the tips of his fingers, making them feel like they were going to burst.

  But anything was better than being dragged out of this cell by his captors.

  Anything was better than the fate every prisoner faced, eventually.

  His clock was ticking.

  His clock ticked to the sound of echoing footsteps.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  The cells stunk of piss. Shit. But most of all, they reeked of dog food. The canned stuff they fed the prisoners with. Alfie struggled to eat it at first. He’d heard a cellmate burst into a scream at the opposite side of the room a few weeks—or months—back.

  Turned out they’d ripped up the metal food can into tiny pieces.

  Hidden it inside the dog food.

  Poor bastard bit right down on it.

  Split his mouth open.

  That was the last Alfie saw, or heard, from him.

  He shuffled further back into the corner of the cell as the footsteps got closer. He knew it was late. He could see the torchlight illuminating every cell block. They didn’t really have a preferred time to come collect a prisoner for … for whatever. There didn’t seem to be any kind of attention to order like that.

  Or perhaps there was an order to their method.

  The only order was that they terrified the prisoners. Psychologically frightened the hell out of them.

  At that job, they succeeded.

  Every fucking time.

  Alfie tasted vomit. He knew he had to keep it down. Didn’t want to make any kind of scene. Wanted to stay as invisible as possible. He knew this group thrived on fear. It was how they’d got to power in this town in the first place. Well, “town” being a subjective term. It was more like an old junkyard. A vast expanse of hangars.

  A place on the edge of the woods that his captors had turned into a walled community.

  A walled community that grew on fear.

  He heard the footsteps stop. Heard them stop, right at the end of the turn in the corridor. He prayed they’d move off to the left. Move away from his cell. Towards the cells at the other side of the hangar. Because as selfish as it was, he wanted to survive a little longer. Just long enough for the infection in his wrists to take a hold. Just long enough for septicaemia to kick in and kill him.

  A painful death, sure. Agonising, even.

  But anything was better than dying at the hands of his captors.

  He knew because he’d heard the screams.

  He heard the footsteps move off to the left. Let go of a tense breath he’d been holding in his chest. His heart raced faster. Adrenaline filled his body. His naked body—but for some boxer shorts that he’d worn for so long they were glued to his ass—relaxed. He was almost safe. Almost free.

  For now.

  He stayed at the back of his cell as the captor walked past the row of cells opposite. He stuck the torch up to the grating. Poked it inside. Stared at each and every prisoner as he passed.

  And the further the captor walked, the more Alfie found himself begging. Begging for something he felt terrible about.

  Please take one of them out.

  Please spare me.

  He watched the torchlight point inside each of the cells at the opposite side of the room.

  Watched it stop.

  Right at the last cell.

  A woman.

  A dark-haired woman. Completely naked. ’Cause of course that’s how they treated the women here. Men wore boxers, women wore nothing.

  That was how they ruled.

  Alfie hadn’t always been locked up in this place. He’d been captured. Forced to wield a gun. Forced to fight for these people.

  But then he’d done something, apparently. Engaged in sodomy. Which wasn’t true. It wasn’t true at all.