“My child needs milk!”

  “How can we survive on three ration cards?”

  “I heard the newcomers have guns? I want my shotgun back!”

  The two men walked past the five lines of people that ended at a small counter and those behind it, who looked anxious and overworked.

  Walking down a narrow corridor, they quickly arrived at a staircase and ascended to the second floor and another maze of corridors, until it widened out, and Fin stopped outside an entrance to an office.

  “This is me. My humble abode during the day. I’ve spent more time in here than I have my own house.”

  “Fin? There’s something important I need to talk to you about.”

  The headmaster pushed the door open. “Oh, ok, well, please take—” He walked inside, Joe followed but stopped in the doorway on seeing who else was in the large room. “— a seat.”

  Swanson was sitting on a weathered sofa on the far right of the room, which was in front of a large bookshelf. The gangster smiled at Joe.

  Fin moved around to the other side of a desk, placing his keys on it. “I hope you don’t mind but I thought it would be good for Saul to be here, considering you have both been through similar ordeals, and can help with the security of the camps. What is the important thing you wanted to talk to me about?”

  Swanson remained with both arms across the back of the sofa. His head tilted a little, waiting for Joe to reply.

  “It’s… about the orange suits.”

  “Yes?”

  “They are planning on nuking the country.”

  “Uh?”

  Swanson sat forward. “Well, fuck me. And how you know that?”

  Fin reached for the back of his seat, his fingers falling short, while keeping his eyes on Joe. “You’re serious?”

  Joe walked further into the office, closing the door behind him. “That’s what I was told while at the castle…”

  Fin frowned, while Swanson looked confused, his eyes shifting between both men. The headmaster nodded. “I heard about it. Some of those that came here, talked about a so called secret government facility that was working on an antidote or something. That’s all I know. So if you were there, why are you…” Joe’s expression finished his thought for him. “I see. That’s not good.”

  Swanson sat back. “So you were at this secret place and then it got destroyed, that about it?”

  For the first time, Joe looked over at the man on the sofa. “The orange suits killed most people there.”

  Now it was Fin’s turn to look confused. “And why on earth would they do that?”

  “The woman in charge of the place, told me the foreign powers want to keep the virus bound to these islands, and the best way to do that and to stop it from having any chance of spreading was to drop the bombs. Nuclear annihilation.”

  Swanson looked away in thought. “But then… why not just nuke us here as well? Why send a plane full of soldiers to take over the place?”

  Joe scrambled for a plausible answer. “Because… they want to use the people here as test subjects.”

  Swanson sat back, swearing again. “They want to make us guinea pigs?!”

  Joe nodded.

  The oldest in the room shook his head, sitting a little heavily in his leather office chair. And not for the first time, let out a slow breath. He looked at Joe. “We cannot allow that to happen.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  LIZ

  Cigarette smoke drifted in the air, as well as the scent of coffee beans and other more exotic odours. The smells kept wanting to drag Liz to her past, to long summer afternoons in Cambridge, a time before Joe and Tia. The dog at her feet just added to the delusion that she was at a laid back music festival and not in a refugee camp full of survivors of an apocalyptic event.

  She was sitting in a small clearing with about seven others, where a number of rows of tents met, and at its centre was a small stove and a collection of boxes arranged as a countertop where hot and cold beverages were being served.

  Stan Carrington was to her left, Maggie’s husband and a man of few words. The opposite of his wife. They had one grown-up son, Sam, who was off doing something in the camp, but Maggie did not seem to know what exactly.

  Liz gripped her foam cup of coffee, feeling guilty for being away from Tia, but wanting to enjoy the feeling of freedom for just a few moments more.

  “So what’s it like on the mainland?” said a thin young man, on the other side of the circle of people. He was sitting with an equally young and slim girl who had her leg draped over his.

  Liz tried to ignore his similarity to a certain psycho. “It’s as you would imagine. Lots of the undead roaming around. Not somewhere you want to be.”

  Maggie chimed in. “I’m sure Liz wants to focus on the future, Andrew.”

  A balding, middle-aged man who had the appearance of a college professor, shook his head. “It’s over. The country’s finished.”

  Liz resisted confirming the man’s sentiment. She knew there were some that still had hope, better to let them keep it. She produced her best fake smile. “This place is working. That’s what matters. This is our home now.”

  The older man continued. “We’ll ruin this place, just like we did the mainland!” He looked around the circle. “This whole thing was caused by a corporation dabbling with stuff they shouldn’t. I know it feels like ten years ago, but don’t you all remember what the news was saying when all of this started? And what the whole of the internet was saying before it went away?”

  Maggie frowned. “The internet said a lot of things, Chester. Most of them insane.”

  “It… is still there… it hasn’t gone away.” said Liz, then regretted the words due to the attention she was getting.

  Stan turned a little in his deck chair. “Still there? No one’s been able to get onto the internet since they arrived here. Even with the telecommunications tower, up on the hills.”

  “I… I mean, the military are still using it. It hasn’t gone away… I don’t know why people here can’t get onto it…”

  Stan frowned then turned away.

  The young man pushed the girl’s leg from his own. “Shit, if the internet is still working, then I’m going to start filming stuff with my phone. The clips gonna be worth a fortune when I upload them!” He turned in his seat, looking to a place beyond the tents which Liz could not see. “I need to see Rachel about getting more charging time.”

  Confusion mixed with anger spread across Stan’s face. “Who’s going to watch them? The dead?”

  “Nah, man, overseas markets. America! I can get rich off of this zombie shit.”

  Chester shook his head again. “There’s one thing I know. No one’s getting off this island alive.” He looked at the others again, including Liz who avoided meeting his gaze. “That airplane that went down? It was filled with those foreigners. They were coming here to kill us all! That’s the rumour.”

  Maggie threw him a look, causing him to look away. “Anyway,” she said sternly. “Liz is right. We are here now, so we have to make the most of it.”

  Liz put her coffee down then stood. “Well, it’s been nice meeting all of you.”

  Maggie looked up at her then stood as well. “Oh, okay. Shall I walk you back to—”

  Liz hobbled backwards, her cane sinking a little into the grass. “No need. Thank you for the coffee.”

  The journey back up the slope was more work than she expected, and there were times she needed to stop to catch her breath. Eventually she made it back to the tent, and pulled the flap open with a bag in her hand, full of welcome gifts from Maggie. “Hey, how you…”

  The tent was empty.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TIA

  Tia looked away from the bright red rose petals. Her grandmother used to have a garden full of such flowers, and the crimson ones were often her favourite to cut free from their stems, but not anymore. The colour was too rich, too close to the stuff that ran from people when they were also sliced.

  “Hey, don’t go too far ahead!” she shouted to the strange little girl that the grownups were afraid of.

  Hope turned around with a blank look on her face, an expression she often had, then looked back to the woodland path, and began slowly walking forward again in her slow stumbling fashion, as if each step she took was her first. Tia thought the girl definitely walked like a zombie, even if she wasn’t one, well, not entirely one. She was something else but Tia wasn’t scared like the others.

  Hope was also a really good artist for how young she was, another thing the adults hadn’t realised. She was drawing the things she saw. Tia knew it. Horrible things. And Tia was sure Hope was drawing them because she did not want to remember. So she drew them with crayon or pencil to get them out of her head. It was a good way of dealing with what had happened, thought Tia and she was going to start drawing as well. Because she too had horrible things in her mind that she did not want to think about. And even though she did her best to not think about them, when she was sleeping her mind would play them back to her, like a film she was trapped inside of.

  So she would try the Hope method of dealing with—

  Laughter came from somewhere between the tree branches. Laughter that wasn’t nice, but cruel. She knew the sound from school when people would pick on her. She ran along the path, quickly arriving at a small clearing, where she stopped, her heart quickly becoming a loud drum in her ears.

  Two boys were sharing a secret between giggles, and on the floor, her arms covered in dry dirt, was Hope.

  “You fell over!” said one of the boys, who was taller, maybe older. He turned to the other. “Maybe I pushed her!” They laughed again.

  Tia marched angrily forward, helping Hope back to her feet. “That’s not funny. You shouldn’t pick on someone so much younger than you.”

  “Yeah. You’re right!” The taller boy charged into Tia before she could react and knocked her clean off her feet, landing heavily on a more rocky section of ground. She screamed in pain from the bone in her wrist clashing with the raised, jagged, rough stone.

  The boy’s laughter increased in pitch, both of them now pushing each other in a reenactment of what had just transpired, but Tia could hardly pay them attention because of the pain coursing up her arm, making her feel a little lightheaded. It was why she did not react straight away when a screeching cry echoed amongst the trees.

  “Get… Get… off...him…” The smaller boy turned and ran in blind panic, falling over a branch on the ground, picking himself up, taking his sobs and screams with him into the thick undergrowth.

  Tia’s senses were returning to full clarity, her eyes focusing on a small figure perched atop a larger. The boy was on the ground, his arms pinned back as Hope tore a chunk of flesh from his thigh with her teeth.

  He screamed in pain and blood spurted from his upper leg, covering the dry leaves and the small child alike.

  Tia sat, frozen. Not from fear but from a kind of fascination. It was the same feeling she would have from watching nature films with the wild beasts from around the world. The ones that would devour others.

  “Help me!”

  The boy was looking at Tia, his eyes bulging, his mouth voicing his cries for help. But she didn’t care. He deserved to be eaten. That’s what should happen to mean people.

  The gunshot jolted her out of her dreamlike state, as she watched the top of Hope’s shoulder exploding into small fragments of tissue and bone. Without thought, she scrambled forward, throwing herself on top of the child, before another shot, one that would certainly have shattered Hope’s skull, could be made.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JOE

  Liz’s words that had come from his radio, were still hanging in Joe’s mind as Fin’s SUV skidded to a halt alongside a group of people, gathered to the side of the road between two of the larger tents of Camp four.

  As he threw open the passenger’s door, someone in the crowd shouted, “Kill the thing!” And his heart sunk, realising he should have said something about Hope, earlier. In the car, on the beach, anytime before now.

  He and Fin ran forward, pushing through the group of thirty, most of whom were repeating the call for vengeance against the monster in their midst.

  Joe got to the front and for a moment did not recognise the child he had pledged his life to save, for she was covered in blood, her face and clothes, the top shoulder of which were a mass of folded skin with partially exposed bone. What was worse though were her eyes, which were pure light-grey. A collar was around her tiny neck, which she snarled and scratched against, the two men holding the leash having trouble keeping her away from them.

  “It’s not human! Kill it!” screamed a woman to Joe’s right.

  “Joe!”

  He swung to his left, spotting Liz among the crowd, almost being toppled by the people pushing against her.

  “Where’s Tia?” he shouted.

  “She’s safe!”

  He pivoted back to the core of four people who were near Hope and moved towards them before Fin could ask the question he wanted to.

  Joe fell to the ground, kneeling before the child who continued to pull at the restriction around her neck. “Hope…” he said with a calm voice, almost not loud enough to be heard above the baying onlookers whom continued the onslaught of requests for the thing to be put down before it could hurt anyone else.

  “Hope…”

  She stopped pulling at the leather strap, instead looking passively at him. He edged closer, the crowd beginning to quieten. Someone shouted at Fin, but the man’s anger was ignored.

  Joe held out a hand and slowly the child did the same, until their fingers touched and her eyes returned to their natural colour. “I’m taking the collar off.” He moved to do so, but stopped on hearing the cocking of a gun behind him. He turned to look into the wild eyes of a man, of similar age to himself.

  “You ain’t going to free her!” said the dark-haired individual. “I’ll shoot both of you dead, if you do!”

  The crowd stepped away from the man, leaving Fin and Liz as the closest.

  Joe shook his head. “She’s not what you think. She’s not a zombie.”

  “She left my boy almost dead!”

  “Did he lose any limbs?”

  The man’s face contorted into confusion. “What? No, just a lot of blood!”

  “Then he will heal.”

  “That’s not the point! What is that thing!? She could do that—”

  Joe saw Swanson move slowly into place behind the boy’s father. The blow from a small club was swift and decisive, the man falling to the soft earth, unconscious. Joe looked back at Hope, his hand moving to remove the strap.

  “Joe, Stop.”

  He did, but also did not turn around to face Fin.

  “I can’t let you do that,” said the former headmaster.

  “I can explain, but you need to let me take her. She won’t be a problem again.”

  The barrel of a gun prodded into the back of Joe’s skull, making him turn a little to see one of Swanson’s men, and another, further back, holding Liz’s arm. He turned some more to face Fin. “This is a mistake.”

  “I think I know what’s best for these people, not you, Joe. Now step away from whatever she is, and let Saul do his job.”

  Joe let out a sigh, looking back at the child and placed his hand on her uninjured shoulder. “You have to go with these men. It’s okay. I’m not far. I will visit you soon.” Her expression was unchanging, but he had a feeling she understood.

  He stood, then watched the two men encourage the small child to walk with them into the nearest of the tents. He flicked his attention to his wife, and the man holding her arm. “You’re going to want to let go of her.”

  The man looked at Swanson, who nodded for him to do so, and Liz shrugged his grip loose.

  Joe turned to Fin. “We need to talk about the child. There are some things I—”

  “I don’t care!”

  The sudden outburst caught Joe off guard.

  “The foreign troops want to come here and take over and then you turn up with your guns and who knows what the child is. How do I know you really shot that plane down?”

  Joe’s mouth opened but words were not forthcoming.

  “How can we—” He glanced at Swanson. “— know, if anything you say is true?”

  “It is…”

  Fin looked down shaking his head. “I need time to figure this all out. I’m placing your people under house arrest. There will be security placed outside their tents.”

  Joe began to move closer to Fin, but stopped on seeing at least three men raise their rifles in his direction. “I wanted to tell you about Hope, but—”

  Fin held up his hand, then nodded to the men behind him who walked forward to Joe, grabbing an arm each. “For now, I’m putting you in a safe spot. Somewhere you can’t do anymore damage.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LAUREN

  Lauren sat on her camp bed, one of four in a large tent which she shared with others. She looked at Baldwin who was standing near the entrance flap, which was open the tiniest amount. The breeze coming through the gap providing scant relief from the heat inside. “They still there?”

  “Yup.”

  “They didn’t say anything?”

  Baldwin continued to watch the two men with rifles, who had appeared not long before, taken their weapons and ordered them to stay inside. “Nope.”

  Mathew held his head in his hands. “It’s Swanson.”

  “We cannot presume anything,” said Clara who was sitting on the bed opposite him.

  He looked at her as if she had said the stupidest thing. “What? Why else would there be men with guns out there?” He looked down. “I knew I should have stayed in the lighthouse.”

  “Maybe we just wait and see how things play out,” said Lauren.

  “Oh, great! Yeah, wait for them to come and take me away!”