“Physically, they left the island behind, but their minds were still back there. Still chained to the asshole Clara—”

  Clara was standing behind Aaron. She slowly walked forward, looking up at the house.

  “This is not on—”

  She whirled around in Greg’s direction. “Don’t fucking say it’s not my fault!”

  As if responding to her anger the boards across the back of the house shuddered.

  “Okay fine. It’s your fault. But it’s also mine, and everyone else who went to that island. We all had our reasons for going back there…”

  Clara wavered, Aaron offering his hand but she staggered away from him.

  “You’re immune from the undead,” said Greg. “You can help get us to the IFSA.”

  She wiped away a tear. “I wanted to help all of these women… And look… look at what I did!”

  Greg took a step closer to her. “We started this together. We’ll end this together…”

  “We found some good vehicles,” said Aaron. “They’re fueled and ready to go, as soon as the sun goes down…”

  Clara turned around and walked back the way she came, the two men following.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  AIDEN

  Aiden looked at the entrance to a smaller lodge than the one he and the others were staying in. The sky was a clear blue and the sun was almost at its summer zenith above him. He pulled his cap off, wiped his forehead then put it back on. It was going to be a hot day.

  “Reckon I’ll check this one out first!” he shouted to the three others. He looked specifically at Mathew. “Why don’t you come with me, and Swanson and Joe can do the other one?”

  The computer nerd appeared reluctant, which Aiden found amusing.

  “I’ll go with ya,” said Swanson, moving back up the sloped road.

  Joe waved at the next wooden building along, one of a series of seven, positioned on the side of a hill, with forests then mountains above them. There were some larger buildings as well, one seemingly a restaurant of some kind, nearer the two-lane road at the bottom.

  As the older Brit made his way to him, Aiden breathed in a lung of warm air, as a bird chirped high above somewhere.

  “Come on then,” said Swanson. “Let’s see if this place got anything worth taking.” He noticed the American looking content. “What’s got you so happy?”

  Aiden paused at the lodge’s entrance. “I have a feeling, we’re going to get through this.”

  “You religious or something?”

  Aiden shook his head. “No. It’s just today I realised what I need to do, to survive. To get to the end.”

  Swanson looked at him, inquisitively. “Happy for ya. But right now, we need to find supplies.” He gestured at the door and Aiden turned the handle and pushed it slowly open, looking through the gap at the confined hallway, with a door to a bedroom on the right, and another to a living room on the left. The floor was scattered with boots and clothes.

  They moved inside, Swanson going into the bedroom.

  Aiden wondered if Swanson would notice the scratches on the inside of the bedroom door, as he did, when he searched the building during the morning when he was outside and most of the others were asleep. One of them, of course wasn’t asleep. One of them was watching. The fat one. The one who knew about computers. But he wasn’t the immediate concern. And anyway, why not have some fun with him? That was the problem with the new world. The dead are boring. Just machines, endlessly looking to consume. Although, he sort of understood having a primal drive because he had one from an early age. He liked to know things. Not like the other children his age, who were interested in computer games and TV. No, he was interested in what made people do what they did. Especially bad people. What made them hurt others? It wasn’t until he started to hurt things, that he began to understand. First, it was the smallest of animals. The most vulnerable. Rats. Who missed rats? Then birds, then cats, then dogs. With each step on the evolutionary ladder, each life he snuffed out, he understood why people hurt others.

  Unfortunately, everyone around him, did not. He was put in a special school for others like him. Those young people society didn’t quite know what to do with, because they thought different to everyone else.

  At the end of his sentence, he emerged a normal, well adjusted young man. Someone ready to take his place amongst others at university, and then working at a local grocery story as the manager. He got married, even had a child with the woman.

  But it was all camouflage. As he aged, he learned to deceive, to appear as one thing, but actually be something completely the opposite. It was fun. It was part of the game he had been playing since he was a kid.

  Eventually though, the string of deaths he had caused across multiple states caught up with him. He always knew the day would come when he would be exposed. And if it weren’t for the British virus devastating the country, he would have been. That didn’t stop the special agent trying to end him though, but that didn’t go too well for the older FBI man.

  “Hey!” said Swanson, coming into the living room with an open can which he held up. “Still smells okay. I think there was someone living here recently. Maybe they’re still around here somewhere.”

  Aiden nodded. “Maybe they saw us coming, freaked out and ran out into the woods. Could still be watching us.” He waited for the cogs to turn in the Londoner’s mind.

  “Could be a problem for us. What if he’s out there with a gun, and thinks he can take us out then take our stuff?”

  Aiden sighed. “We have to hope that doesn’t happen… You know. When we first arrived. I’m sure I saw a light in the woods. Maybe a mile from here. Could be a cabin?.. But if someone’s up there, he’s probably just wanting to be left alone. I know what that’s like!”

  Swanson threw the tin, pulling his small bottle of alcohol from his jacket pocket, taking another swig. “Fuck me. I’m out. Don’t suppose there’s booze in this place?”

  “We should go and look at the cabin. Maybe he knows where the supplies are and we don’t have to spend all day looking for stuff?”

  Swanson nodded. “That’s a good point. Yeah, let’s do that.” He marched through the ground floor to the patio doors, which opened at the back of the building.

  Aiden followed. “Don’t you want to tell the others where we’re going?”

  Swanson slid the glass door open, then paused, looking back. “What do I look like? A kid that needs to tell his mum and dad where he’s going? We’ll tell them once we know what’s going on at the cabin. Anyway, I’m done being told what to do. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  MATHEW

  The door to ‘Gavin’s Woodland Steakhouse’ knocked gently against its frame. In front of the wide building with a series of large glass windows with stencilled images of animals, were scattered logs for a fire, across the slabs, which Joe and Mathew stepped over, before the former pushed the door with its cracked panes of glass, open.

  The interior was as welcoming as the exterior with a high ceiling full of arched wooden beams but the floor was full of knocked over chairs and tables, as well corresponding condiments and laminated menus.

  They moved inside. Directly in front of them stools were sitting on their sides, which should have been standing around a bar, the counter being covered in bottles, some empty some not.

  Mathew moved to one of the latter.

  “Probably not a good idea to be drinking,” said Joe, although he wasn’t really sure if that was true.

  Mathew used the palm of his right, fingerless hand to unscrew the cap off the blue bottle and took a sip. “Hm…” He looked at Joe. “Was never really much of a drinker. Hated how it tasted. Now… it all tastes great.” He took another larger mouthful then placed the bottle back on the counter while Joe moved further into the airy open space, peering into what rooms he could see into.

  “Let’s take a look in the guest rooms, upstairs.” He began to walk towards a narrow hallway, when Mathew cleared his throat. Joe knew the signal by now and turned around. “What?”

  “I don’t think we can trust Aiden.”

  Joe looked a little confused. “He saved me. He saved a lot of people. Why do you say that?”

  Mathew looked down briefly, searching for the right way to say what he wanted. “This morning. I saw him kill a zombie—” He pointed behind him. “— out there in the field.”

  “We can’t trust him because he killed a zombie?”

  Mathew scrunched his face. “No, it’s not about it being a zombie. It’s how he killed it.” Joe was looking more confused and Mathew could feel his frustration building. “He was playing with it. Like it was fun for him. And then… then he tore it apart, like he was angry with it or something…”

  Joe sighed. “Is it that surprising that someone would act like that, after everything that has happened? Hell, there are times when we—”

  “No! You’re not getting what I’m...”

  Joe was looking past him, and obviously not listening to what he was saying, but before he could fully turn around to look at what Joe was so interested in, Joe moved across the room and pulled him lower.

  “What? What is it?” said Mathew.

  “Humvee approaching from the north.”

  “We have to warn the others!”

  “If we leave here they might see us. We don’t know what aerial surveillance they have. We have to hope they keep going…”

  “How’d they find us!”

  “They haven’t yet. They probably don’t know we’re here and are just scouting.”

  Mathew joined Joe in peering above the bottom of the window frame. The humvee was slowing as Mathew’s heartbeat was increasing.

  The truck pulled into the small road which led up the hill to the lodges.

  “Now what do we do!”

  “We keep calm. The pickup’s well hidden and there’s no way of knowing it hasn’t always been here. I’m sure Liz and Ember already know we have company and are hiding, same for the other guys… We need to get upstairs. They’re coming this way.”

  Both men crouched walked as quickly as they could across the room, into the slim corridor as the humvee’s engine cut off, just outside the restaurant and two truck doors could be heard opening.

  Someone was heard shouting they should start with the restaurant, they then made a joke about eating a steak.

  Mathew looked at the confined hallway, with three closed doors. Within seconds the soldiers downstairs would hear them on the floor above. Any pressure on any board would vibrate through the building.

  Joe and he spotted the door to an outside balcony at the same time and pulled it open just as the soldiers entered below. Being as quiet as possible, they crept outside, moving out of the way of the window which allowed a glorious view over the forests and hills, and pushed the door gently closed.

  Mathew stayed closed to the wall, watching Joe on the opposite side of the window, both listening for a sound they did not want to hear. Boards creaked as someone walked up the stairs to the second floor.

  “Hey, it’s quite nice up here!” said a man just inches away on the other side of the glass. “Maybe Forbes can kiss my ass, and I’ll live the rest of my days out here. Looks like good skiing in the winter. Probably good hunting as well…” There was a muffled second voice from below. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”

  The footsteps faded until they heard the soldiers exit the building.

  “I’ll check out the top lodge first,” said the same man, outside. “You do the others.”

  Joe pulled open the balcony door and with Mathew moved back inside.

  “What do we do?”

  “You stay here, I’m going to—”

  A bang echoed in the distance. Both men looked back to the windows.

  “What was that?” said Mathew.

  Joe rushed towards the stairs.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  SWANSON

  Ten minutes earlier.

  As Swanson trekked through the forest, the effect of the alcohol in his blood was beginning to wear off, and the early afternoon sun wasn’t helping his parched mouth.

  He had started drinking as soon as he found it was readily available at the camp. Not only were they making their own, but they had a trailer full of spirits which they had only just started into. The brother and sister were clever, he gave them that. Using alcohol to keep people under their control.

  A small amount of bribing was all it took for him to dip into their supply, but it had been a good few years since he had regularly drunk. Youthful exuberance with beer and whisky, had awarded him twelve years at her Majesty’s pleasure. But rather than regret his time he spent inside, he was glad for it. It got him clean and at the same time, taught him how the world really worked. Dog eat dog, and he was going to be the biggest, meanest dog London had ever seen.

  But losing Lydia kickstarted the habit. It was either the numbness the bottle brought, or death, and he wasn’t quite ready to leave everything behind, just yet. He knew he had to regulate it though, too much and he would go off the rails and end up dead anyway. Too little and he would take his anger out on others. And he was going to need them to survive.

  But as he walked out of the forest to a clearing, with the weathered cabin at its centre, he could feel his grief creeping up on him again. Memories of his time with his wife were pushing their way into his head, blocking more useful thoughts. He needed a drink. Whoever was inside this homestead had to have booze. No way they were out here without it, he thought.

  He glanced behind to make sure the American was keeping up.

  “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t go right up to the cabin,” said Aiden. “I don’t know how it is… was, in England, but people out here, won’t take kindly to confrontation.”

  Swanson snorted, walking onto the gravel and grass that surrounded the fifteen-feet rectangular wooden-planked box, with a single door, window and chimney. He stopped at the start of the small path that ran to the paint-chipped entrance. “We know you’re in there!” he shouted.

  There was no reply.

  “If you don’t come out, I’m—”

  The boom echoed around the circular space, sending birds into the sky. Swanson looked down at his shirt and the growing crimson patch where his stomach should be, then fell to his knees, not understanding where the gunshot had come from.

  As a different kind of numbness crept across his body, his mind spun. He wanted to lift his hand, take his handgun from his belt, but his upper limbs were not answering the call from his brain.

  The crunching of gravel, heralded Aiden, walking around the front of Swanson who was having trouble keeping himself upright.

  The American waved an old-looking gun at the cabin. “There was someone living out here. Bo was his name. Had some real fun with him. Alive and dead.” He held up the gun. “Had this piece of crap for protection. Didn’t help him much, though.”

  Swanson fell forward, having just enough strength to twist so he landed on his back. He sat there, his heart not doing a good job of pumping his blood around his body, looking up at the cobalt blue sky, as Aiden’s face loomed overhead.

  “Sorry, but can’t have too many wolves in the henhouse. Need to deplete the stock so to speak. You get that right? I mean, you would have killed me sooner or later. Could see it in your eyes. Takes a killer to know a killer. Think someone said that in a film once.”

  “Joe…”

  “His time will come. Hopefully it will be me, but he’s just as likely to get himself killed, especially with how messed up his back is. And then there’s just the guy with no fingers. Not exactly a problem I can’t deal with.” Aiden sighed. “I’ve missed my family. It’s about time I got a new one.”

  Confusion and anger whirled through Swanson’s mind, as his vision darkened.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  JOE

  Joe peered through the reeds to the track and the humvee and soldier sat inside it. The twenty something man was talking on a radio. Satellite comms, no doubt, which meant more were coming and he and the others were running out of time to leave. A bigger problem was he had no idea where the other soldier was, or why there had been a clear gunshot sound from somewhere out in the woods.

  Mathew was breathing heavily behind him. Joe hoped not loud enough to be heard from the military vehicle, fifty-feet away.

  He looked along the ditch they were crouched in, to where the ground rose and became the road which led up to the lodge. There were trees there. More cover. Looking back at Mathew, he pointed at them and the younger man nodded he understood and both moved through the grass and weeds, making sure to keep low, trying not to break too many twigs.

  Joe peeked above the rim of the indentation in the dirt at the humvee. The man was gone. Joe swore under his breath while scanning the other lodges. “He must have gone inside that one,” he said, looking at the closest to the truck. “Now’s our chance. Stay close.”

  Not giving Mathew a chance to reply, he sprung up and ran inside the wall of branches, flicking his attention to his left at the other buildings, which quickly moved out of sight as the ground rose. When his destination was near, he broke from the trees, running across the road and pushed open the side entrance to the lodge, walking into the wide ground floor living space, which was empty but smelled of vegetables. A pan clattered on the stove in the kitchen, its contents bubbling over. He quickly walked and turned the gas supply down, then moved back into the living room.

  “Liz!” he half shouted upwards, towards the stairs.

  A creak came from the floorboards as Mathew ran inside as well, bending over, trying to catch his breath.

  Joe looked through the windows to the outside. Not seeing any movement, he crept towards the bottom of the wooden steps, keeping watch at their top. “Liz? Ember?”

  Ember appeared at the top of the stairs, rifle in her hand, and he ran up them as she took a step back. “There are two soldiers,” he said. “Near the other lodges and restaurant.”