Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 2): The Journey (3 page)

T
he town was called Hopeforth
.

It was small. It didn’t cover much ground. So much so that Chloë and her group had literally bumped into it in the middle of a bunch of fields and hills. But it was big enough to house a number of buildings. Big enough for a main street with newsagents, grocery stores, supermarkets. Big enough to hold a cinema.

And it was untouched.

Completely untouched.

Chloë walked slowly down the main street of Hopeforth. The mid-afternoon sun was blotted out by thick clouds, but it was still warm, still muggy. There was a taste of dust in the air. The smell of mustiness that always came with territory that hadn’t been touched in quite some time.

There was food. Water. Supplies.

And not a sign of life.

“It’s a gift,” Suzy said, grinning from false tooth to false tooth. “A sign from above.”

“Heaven sent,” Harvey muttered. Dave and Dan held hands, laughed, their voices echoing in the nothingness. Hassan and Anisha wrapped their arms over one another’s shoulders. The delight of the group was clear to see. The joy of the discovery.

But still, Chloë couldn’t feel good.

She couldn’t feel good because something wasn’t right.

“What’re you thinking?” Dad asked.

Chloë looked over at the supermarket to her right. Looked at the spiral door just waiting to be pushed open. Beyond the glass, which was covered in bird dirt, she saw food. Lots of food.

Real food.

“Hold back before…”

But it was too late. Jackson and some of his mates, Colin and Arnold, hurtled towards the supermarket doors. They pushed them open, spurring on many other group members to follow. When the spiral doors swirled around, Chloë caught a sour whiff of rotting vegetables, of decaying meat.

But the tins in there. The water bottles in there. The shelves stacked with biscuits and cereals and long life milk.

They had supplies.

They had food and water.

They had somewhere.

Chloë saw Alice jogging towards the shop. They exchanged a glance, then Alice shrugged. “Never thought I’d crave baked beans with mini pork sausages again. But hey. I’m sorry. Allow me this one.”

Chloë nodded.

It didn’t take Alice a moment to rush inside the supermarket.

Chloë stood outside. Stood beside her dad. She looked around the empty street. Looked at the silent roads. She glanced up at the buildings. The flats. No sign of life. Not even a sign that anyone had tried to board themselves in. Cars still parked up on the kerbs. No smashed windows. Nothing like that.

“Like this place just went to sleep and never woke up,” Dad said.

Chloë nodded. She didn’t speak her mind, but she could only think one thing.

But if they didn’t wake up, then where did they go?

She walked down the pavement at the left hand side of the main street. Followed it right down. Past bakers. Past locksmiths. Past an old video rental shop that had a few films in the window she’d really wanted to see. She saw all this stuff. All these clothes. All these books. And she started to wonder if maybe this was the place. Maybe, if nobody had found this place, they really could settle here.

Maybe they could be safe here.

But something still didn’t feel right.

She heard a cheer back at the supermarket. Looked around, saw Simon covering himself in Coca Cola, a crowd circling and whooping. She saw her group. Saw the happiness of her group.

“You led them here,” Dad said. “You should be back there. Celebrating with them.”

And Chloë wanted that. She wanted so much to be with her people. Because that’s who they were.
Her
people.

Then she heard the crackling sound to her left.

She stopped. Looked back where she’d heard the noise.

“Chloë?” Dad said.

Chloë ignored him. She walked back. Back to where the sound had been most prominent.

A door. A cracked old wooden door. Partly ajar.

Coming from inside, something crackling.

Chloë turned. Looked across the street. Saw a garage door. She thought she saw movement behind one of the parked cars. But the longer she looked at it, the more she realised nothing was there. Everything was okay.

No. Everything wasn’t okay.

Something was wrong.

She pressed her hand on the wooden door.

Pushed it open.

“Chloë, what—”

“Ssh.”

Chloë walked inside the building. It looked like the entrance to a flat. There was a lounge area to the left. A kitchen area up ahead.

Some wooden stairs on Chloë’s right.

Chloë calmed her breathing. Listened for the crackling noise.

And the more she listened, the more she realised where it was coming from.

Upstairs.

She looked up the stairs. Looked up at the closed doors. Somewhere up there, a clock ticked.

“I’m not sure we should go wandering up there,” Dad said.

“Then don’t,” Chloë said.

She started climbing up the stairs.

Every step she took, a different creaking noise emerged, each and every one of them making her jump. She felt the foundations of the house shifting as she got higher. Felt eyes on her—eyes she knew weren’t really there because she couldn’t see them.

But most of all, she heard the crackling getting louder.

Like a television. Or a radio.

She climbed the last few steps. Reached the top of the stairs.

The crackling noise was coming from right at the end of the hallway. The two doors on her right were closed. Outside, in the distance, she could hear the excitement as her group continued raiding the supermarket.

Chloë held her breath.

Took a step.

She heard her dad rushing up the stairs. Heard him chasing her. But she had to get to the room. She had to know what that noise was. Something wasn’t right about this town. And something told her the answers were in that room in front of her. The answers were the crackling noise.

But she wouldn’t know until she searched the room.

She wouldn’t know until she found out what it was.

She wouldn’t know until—

The door to her right crashed open.

Two monsters lurched out.

One of them—a blond man—so bony he had to have starved to death before finally being bitten.

Another of them a woman, her pale arms covered in cuts, her bare chest and saggy breasts smeared with bloodied bites.

Both of them staggering towards Chloë.

“Chloë!”

Chloë went to lift her right hand out of instinct. When nothing happened, she remembered her left. Her left! Shit. She had to get used to that. Had to retrain her brain to react better. Had to—

When she lifted the knife in her left hand, it was already too late.

The woman grabbed hold of Chloë’s left wrist.

Wrapped her wobbly teeth around it.

Chloë tried to pull back. Remembered the sensation. The tearing of her flesh. The burning. All about to happen again. All about to—

Two shots.

A splatter of blood.

The monsters dropped to the floor.

Chloë’s heart pounded. She turned. Saw her dad had his gun raised. He didn’t look happy.

“I told you not to go—”

“I had it,” Chloë said, slipping out of his reach before he could grab her.

“Chloë!”

She rushed over to the door at the end of the corridor. Wrapped her hand around the rusty bronze handle. Behind the door to her right, she could hear noises. Scraping. Scratching against the wood. Groaning.

More monsters.

More of them.

But they didn’t matter.

Not when she had to see what was behind the door.

Not when the crackling noise was so loud.

She twisted the handle as Dad pressed himself up to the other door. “Need to get the hell out of here. Stop messing around!”

She pushed the door open.

Heard the crackling static at full blast.

And then she stepped into the room.

The room was empty. Empty of any furniture. Wasn’t even a window in there.

But there was a machine.

A big black machine.

The machine where the static noise was coming from.

A tune. Some kind of familiar tune, like a song. Only filled with static.

Chloë walked over towards the machine. Walked over, as the door her dad was holding back split, as he shouted at her to get out of there.

And as he fired at the monsters, as he fought them back, Chloë could only stare at the machine.

She could only listen to the voice beneath the crackling static.

The woman’s voice.

“Is anyone out there? I repeat, is anyone out there? Safe haven. Safe place. Safe community. Pwllheli. Pwllheli, North West Wales. Survivors welcomed. Survivors welcomed. Pwllheli.”

“
Y
ou have to tell them
, Chloë. You owe it to this group to tell them the truth.”

Chloë walked down the side streets of Hopeforth. It was a nice evening. The cloud had cleared and in its place, an orange glow from the setting sun. It was cooler and fresher, which was a relief after the thick stuffiness of the day. It was nice. Just nice.

The windows of the empty buildings glimmered in the setting sun. Chloë and her father walked around them. Looked at every single one from outside. The group decided they’d take a proper look around tomorrow. A thorough investigation, as Dad called it. But for now, they just looked at these places from outside. Observed them.

And they seemed… quiet. Really quiet.

No sounds other than the birdsong in the nearby hills.

Nothing but the happy chatter and laughter of her group a few streets down.

Nothing but the crackling transmission.

The familiar tune underneath the crackling.

The woman’s voice.

“Is anyone out there? I repeat, is anyone out there? Safe haven. Safe place. Safe community. Pwllheli. Pwllheli, North West Wales. Survivors welcomed. Survivors welcomed. Pwllheli.”

“I thought you said this place was good,” Chloë said.

Dad rolled his eyes. Shook his head. “And it is good. It really is.”

“Everyone seems happy.”

“And so they should be.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Dad opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Half-smiled. Shook his head. “I sometimes forget.”

“Forget what?”

“That you’re still my daughter. You’ve… you’ve grown up a lot, Chlo. Not so much in height. Still a shorty to me. But you’ve matured. You’re using words I never thought you’d utter. You’re showing confidence. It’s good, but it’s…”

“But it’s what?”

He turned away. Shook his head. “Nothing.”

Chloë looked ahead at the long, stretching road. Felt the cool breeze brushing against her skin. She knew what her dad was going to say.
“It’s not you.”

But then, her and her dad had been separated for so long. Both of them had been through stuff. Both of them had been put through things no people ever thought they would do. Of course she’d changed. They’d both changed.

Everyone had grown up in this world.

Grow up, or die.

“They have a right to know about the transmission,” Dad said.

Chloë swallowed a lump in her throat. She could taste the tangy tomato of bean juice. She hadn’t enjoyed her lukewarm baked beans, as much of a luxury as it should’ve been. Because she couldn’t get the discovery out of her mind.

The discovery of the transmission.

The transmission leading people towards a place called Pwllheli in North West Wales. Dad had told her about that.

The transmission that offered hope of a safe haven.

“I’ve heard transmissions in the past,” Chloë said.

“Haven’t we all?”

“I’ve… I’ve been to places that call themselves safe before.”

“Chloë, we’ve all been through—”

“After Elizabeth died, some people took us in. Army people. Back in Preston. Just a few days after the start of… of this. We lived there for some time. Lived in these barracks. And it was good. It was nice. Until we found out they were trying to feed us people. Humans. And Elizabeth was one of them.”

She saw her dad’s jaw slacken. It was the first time she’d been honest about how her sister died.

“And then mum,” Chloë said, sniffing back tears she couldn’t afford to shed. “She… I was with another group. The one I got away from Preston with. Mum and me got split from the rest. Got taken in by a man called Mike. Only Mike had a problem with the people who my old group ended up with. And… and there was a fight. Mum got captured. Killed. They shot her in the head while I watched.”

“No.”

“I watched Mum’s skull explode.”

“Chloë—”

“I watched her brains splatter out of her head and hit the concrete—”

“Stop!”

Dad’s voice echoed through the empty town. From a flat roof to the right, some birds flapped away.

“I’m not telling you this to upset you,” Chloë said. “I’m—I’m telling you this because you need to know why we can’t go to these safe places. Because they’re never safe. Not when there’s other people there.”

They stood there, silent. Looked one another in the eyes. Dad’s eyes were bloodshot. Filled with tears. Replaying thoughts Chloë knew she’d play over and over for the rest of her life.

“And that’s why we can’t tell anyone what we heard on that transmission,” Chloë said. “Not… not yet, anyway. Not now we’ve found somewhere good.”

Again, Dad just looked at her. Shook his head. Wiped the tears from his eyes and sniffed up. “I told you I’d tell you if you were doing something I don’t like.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. What you had to go through. With—with Mum. And Liz.”

Chloë shook her head. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had truly apologised for her losses. Couldn’t remember the last time anyone had really
understood.
Because yes, everyone had lost in these days. But not everyone had lost Mum and Elizabeth.

Everyone was so caught in their own losses to really pay attention to anyone else’s.

Dad crouched opposite Chloë. Took her left hand, but gently, like he was worried it might drop off.

“You’re a good person, Chloë. And you’re a good leader. But you still have a lot to learn. And because I’m the world’s best dad, I’m going to let you learn it.”

He kissed her on the forehead. Backed away.

“But if I ever worry you’re stepping over the line too much, I will interfere. I’m sorry.”

He started walking back towards the smells of cooking food, the sounds of celebration.

“Now come on,” he said, stopping and looking back at Chloë. “Let’s go get some beans.”

Chloë looked over at the building where the transmission played. Looked at its outline simmering in the setting sun.

She took a deep breath, turned away, and followed her dad.

H
e stepped around the corner
.

Watched Chloë and her father walk away.

And then he looked back at the building they spoke of. The one with the transmission.

He tightened his grip on the pistol and walked towards it.