Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 2): The Journey (2 page)

T
he Barnatium Children’s Home
sat right in the middle of a grassy valley just waiting to be discovered.

The fences around it were tall but flimsy. They rattled in the wind, which was strong for late summer. The air was thick and muggy, but there was a chilliness to the mornings that teased the onset of autumn. The spread of the frost. The dew. August was stretching on into September.

And then September would stretch into October, October into November, and then… winter.

Winter and still no home.

Winter and no place to call “safe.”

“What do you think?”

Chloë leaned across the grass. She felt the front of her black cloak turning soggy in the morning dew. Her throat was dry. Always was dry these days. Just came with the territory of the larger group. Just part of the sacrifice of providing for everybody.

She turned. Saw Alice lying flat by her side. The binoculars were lowered. She looked at the Barnatium Children’s Home with a squint.

“Can I take another look?” Chloë asked.

Alice nodded. Handed Chloë the binoculars.

Chloë went to reach for them with her right hand when she remembered she didn’t have a right hand anymore.

It happened in waves. The memories. The reminders of what had happened. Being in the Church of Youth stronghold. Being bitten. The only option left for either Dad or Alice to cut away her arm and hope for the best.

And they had. At least, Alice had, from what Chloë had been told. Dad struggled. Of course he struggled—he was her dad.

But she was still here. She was without her good arm. The one she’d learned to use a knife with. The one she’d learned to fire a gun with.

But still here.

She lowered her knife, cautious to let it go. And then she clumsily grabbed hold of the binoculars. Felt them slip between her fingers.

“I can hold—”

“It’s okay,” Chloë said.

She tried to avoid noticing her cheeks heating up. Maybe if she didn’t pay attention to them, she could pretend they weren’t heating up at all.

She looked through the binoculars. Looked through the metal fences towards the old children’s home. The grass was long. The cars parked up in the parking bay were covered in a film of dust. Crows sat on the top of those cars, cawed at the top of their voices.

At a glance, this place looked empty.

But it was always the glance that could be deceiving.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anyone around,” Alice said.

Chloë swallowed a lump, dampened her throat. She moved the binoculars from left to right. Examined the cracked windows. The ivy dangling down over the smashed glass. She licked her lips. “It doesn’t.”

“Which means we can push on in there.”

“After asking the group whether they want to—”

“Chloë, you know the group as well as I do. They’ll want to settle.”

Chloë stopped moving the binoculars. Stared at the darkened room behind one of the dusty windows. She wasn’t sure if Alice was right when she said she knew the group as well as Chloë. Because of the nineteen survivors from the Church of Youth’s camp, Chloë didn’t know many of them at all.

Just that there’d been thirty-three. There’d been thirty-three survivors that walked away from her mum and sister’s makeshift grave six weeks ago. And now fourteen of those had died.

The last nineteen.

Nineteen people who relied on her to lead them.

Who turned to her.

All because she’d saved their lives.

“I can go back and mention it to them,” Alice said. “I can ask your dad to take a look. See what he thinks.”

Chloë’s thoughts drifted. Drifted back to the Church of Youth camp. To all the other safe places she’d stumbled upon. And she didn’t like the feeling those drifting thoughts brought along with them. There were too many memories. Too many bad memories.

She didn’t like the memories.

Especially not the ones where she’d thought she was safe.

Because she knew now there was no such thing as safe. Not in the company of other people.

Which was why it was important to—

She saw something shift in the right of her binoculars.

She blinked. Snapped out of her thoughts.

“I’ll go—”

“There’s something in there,” Chloë said.

Alice frowned. “Something in where?”

Chloë opened her mouth to respond.

And then she saw it.

The awkward stagger.

The greying skin.

A monster.

A monster inside the children’s home.

Her heart picked up when she saw the monster. Because if monsters were getting inside, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it meant other people weren’t in there. Because other survivors didn’t usually let monsters just wander around their grounds. Other survivors didn’t usually just leave the monsters to do their own thing.

Which may be a good thing.

Because it might mean no one else was in there.

Which meant that…

Her thoughts immediately ceased when she heard a gunshot crack through the air.

She saw the monster’s head explode.

Watched its ragged body tumble down onto its knees, then land face first onto the tarmac.

Then, silence.

“Did you hear that?” Alice asked.

Chloë didn’t reply. She just watched.

The anticipation inside started to turn sour.

Because she knew what gunshots meant.

Gunshots meant other people.

And other people meant trouble.

She watched the glass. Watched the grounds. The monster had shuffled to its left when the bullet hit it. Which meant someone inside the abandoned children’s home must’ve shot it.

She waited.

Waited.

Waited for movement.

For a sign of life.

For…

And then she saw it.

Saw a man by the window. A gun in his hand.

She watched him creep out from behind the glass. Watched him, all dressed in black, crouch beside the monster. Inspect its exploded head. Turn around and stick a thumb up behind him.

And then, a few seconds later, two other people emerged.

They weren’t the well-armed guards Chloë was expecting. They weren’t even armed.

They were just a woman and a young boy. The woman with patches of hair missing from her brown mane. The young boy peaky, skinny, his Newcastle United shirt barely dangling on to his thin frame.

They were just a family of three.

Just a trio.

“You see them?” Alice asked.

Chloë wanted to say yes. She wanted to tell Alice she saw them. That they didn’t look dangerous. That they were just normal people. Just a normal family. That they could be safe with them.

But instead, she lowered the binoculars.

Turned to Alice.

“They’re armed. They look dangerous. We should go.”

She stood up. Turned away from the scene of the gunfire. Away from the children’s home.

“But—but shouldn’t we all be the judge of that?”

“They’re dangerous,” Chloë said, heart racing. Her mind took her back to the other people she thought were okay. The other people she’d trusted.

They either turned bad, or they died.

And Chloë couldn’t risk anyone tearing the nineteen apart. Not now they were all she had left.

She wanted to tell Alice they were okay. That they looked like normal people. That she could go back there and she could ask them to join up with their group. That they could be safer in numbers.

But she didn’t believe that was true.

Not anymore.

So she dropped the binoculars to the ground.

Picked up her knife.

Squeezed the handle tightly.

And then, she walked back towards her group.

Away from another potential safe haven.

Away from everything.

F
or all the
hope of finding a truly safe place to rest, Chloë knew it was never going to be as simple as that.

She walked barefoot in the mid-afternoon heat. It was another warm day. Always did seem warm, these summer days. She didn’t remember it being this warm when the world was normal. Summer holidays were always a letdown for that reason. Or maybe she was just remembering them wrong. Maybe they were a letdown because she never had any real friends to play out with during them.

Maybe now was the first time she’d ever led a group in the middle of summer.

“That place back there. The one Alice told me about. Not look safe to you?”

Chloë looked up at her dad. She looked at his shaven head, something Harriet, one of the group members who used to be a hairdresser, had seen to. She looked at his brown, deep-set eyes. She didn’t like to look into them when she lied. So she turned back away. Looked at the grass ahead. Looked at the fields. Looked at the hills they made their way across. At the villages and towns in the distant horizon. “No. The people there had guns. They looked nasty. They looked—”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Chlo.”

Chloë’s throat tingled. She wasn’t sure what Dad meant. She definitely couldn’t lie to him again, not now. He always knew. Always had been able to tell when she was lying. “What… what do you—”

“I went back there. When I said I was going to the loo. I saw the people there. The father. The woman. The boy.”

Chloë’s stomach sank.

“They weren’t bad people, Chlo. In fact, when I saw them, they weren’t even people at all. The dead had already got to them.”

Shame intensified inside Chloë. The three people. The three poor people. She’d wanted to help them. She’d wanted to join up with them in some way. Change the children’s home so it was safer. So there were more people on guard. More people on watch.

But she’d walked away.

She’d turned around and she’d walked away.

And now they were dead.

“Please don’t tell them,” Chloë said.

Dad looked over his shoulder. Looked at the following group. Looked at Alice and Dean walking side by side. Looked at Hassan and Anisha. At Dave and Dan, the two men who liked each other. He looked at Jackson. Jackson always looked back at him. Always looked back at Chloë, too. Chloë knew he didn’t like her very much. He was always the one who wanted to bring other group members in. Always wanted to make the group grow and expand.

She looked into his hard face and then she looked ahead again.

“I won’t tell them,” Dad said. “But Chloë, these people trust you. And trust isn’t infinite. You can’t just expect them to blindly follow you forever. That’s how enemies are made.”

“I’m trying to keep them safe.”

“And you’re doing a good job of that, angel. But sometimes respect isn’t just earned by showing how tough you are. Often, respect and trust are made in other ways.”

“What other ways?”

“Well, true leaders show mercy. They take risks on people. They might be strong, but they’re understanding, too.”

Chloë watched her bare feet wade through the grass. She preferred to walk barefoot. Meant she could sneak up on monsters and people quicker. “How do I be understanding?”

“By stopping at somewhere safe. By stopping to rest when the group tires. By earning their trust.”

Chloë stopped. She looked back at the group. Saw them gasping. Struggling with every step. Saw Harvey, the old man, with his arm around his even older wife, Suzy. Saw the tired faces. The exhausted bodies.

She saw them all following her and she wanted nothing more than for these people she’d saved from the Church of Youth’s clutches to be safe.

But sometimes that meant doing things she didn’t want to do.

“We’ll find somewhere eventually.”

“Another night camp?” Dad asked.

“If we have to—”

“And then what? More people die? Another zombie attack? Another bandit raid? And then what?”

Chloë heard the tone in Dad’s voice. He was annoyed with her. Annoyed with her way of doing things.

But she didn’t say anything back to him.

Instead, she just looked ahead at the trees.

Pushed on.

Dad sighed. Scratched his neck. “I’m just worried about you, Chlo. I mean, you’re still a kid. You’re a kid and you’re taking on a big responsibility.”

“I’ve been through worse.”

“And I don’t doubt that. But just know there’s… just know I’m your dad. And I’m here for you. And I’ll always stand by you, but I’ll tell you when I think you’re going about something the wrong way. At least allow me that.”

Chloë glanced up at her dad. Saw a softness to his eyes.

He smiled.

She nodded. Smiled back at him.

“So when’re we stopping?”

The voice cut through the moment between Chloë and her dad; snapped it in two.

Chloë looked back and saw Jackson walking right behind them.

He always smelled of sweat, so Chloë always knew when it was him before even looking at him. He never seemed to get tired. Not like the rest of the group. So Chloë didn’t know why he was always going on about stopping or whatever. He never seemed to lack any energy.

Dad looked from Jackson to Chloë.

“We’ll… we’ll keep on the lookout,” Chloë said. “For somewhere safe.”

“I see a lot of grass and a lot of room to be attacked. Don’t see a heck of a lotta safe places.”

“We’ll find somewhere.”

“And then if we’re attacked again?”

“What?”

“If we’re attacked again? We’ll be down to eighteen. Seventeen. Sixteen. We won’t be a group. Just a buncha people.” He turned around. Looked at Harvey and Suzy limping along. “A buncha old people, knowing our luck.”

Chloë stared at the grass as she walked. “We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“But if it does… we really need to start thinking about expansion.”

“Expansion?”

Jackson nodded. He had a gun in his right hand and a heavy bag of supplies over his left shoulder. “Growing the group again. Bringing it back to optimal levels. Making ourselves big enough to be strong again.” He paused for a second. Birdsong and wind filled the silence. “Then taking what we need.”

Dad shook his head. “We discussed this, Jackson. We don’t attack other—”

“But that’s what everyone else does. And that’s how everyone else survives. So you maybe wanna mention that to your kid here. Maybe wanna tell her how the world works. How it’s always worked.”

He put a heavy hand on Chloë’s left shoulder. Chloë shrugged it away immediately. She didn’t like it when Jackson put his hand on her. It made her feel weird.

She thought about what Jackson said. About how attacking others kept her people alive. And she thought, if only he knew. If only he knew what she’d seen. If only he knew what she’d done to be here today.

But when you’d done the things Chloë had done—when you’d stolen, killed, used people as bait—it took a long time to come back from that.

A long time to feel human again.

Which is why Chloë just avoided people now. People meant trouble.

And trouble meant slipping away again.

“Shit.”

She heard her dad’s voice and lifted her knife immediately.

She looked around the field. Scanned for a monster. Or for another person. Dad had sworn. He only ever swore when something bad was about to happen. When he saw a threat.

But there was nothing.

She lowered her knife slowly. Looked up at her dad. Saw him staring into the distance, wide-eyed.

“What’s…”

And then she saw Jackson staring ahead, too.

She turned around, heart thumping. Squinted ahead. Tried to get a look at what it was they were so surprised, so amazed, about.

And then she saw it.

The town.

The town right at the bottom of the hill.

Not a person in sight.

No movement in sight.

Quiet.

Empty.

“Guess this is our place for the night,” Jackson said.

And as he walked past her, as the group followed, excitement in the air, there was nothing Chloë could do to stop them.

Only stare at the empty town.

The bad feeling building in her chest.