A ZOMBIE NOVELLA

before safe haven: Lucy

Christopher Artinian

Published by Headless RAM Publishing

COPYRIGHT © 2018

CHRISTOPHER ARTINIAN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

DEDICATION

To the friends who never ask for anything, but give you everything.

CHAPTER ONE

“That’s not the story mommy,” said Charlie. Her golden brown locks trembled on her forehead as she began to giggle.

“No? You sure? ‘Cause I’m pretty certain that’s how I remember it,” replied Lucy, as a contented smile, the kind derived from love at its purest, washed over her face like a wave onto fresh sand.

“No,” said Charlie, laughing now. “Go get the book,” she said, pushing at her mother’s leg.

“Really? But I’m so comfy,” replied Lucy, gently squeezing her daughter closer towards her on the bed. It was a grey wintry day outside, and school had been cancelled. Lucy had worked twelve days in a row and wild horses couldn’t have dragged her into the hospital today. Not because of her fatigue, not because of the cold, miserable, drizzly day, but because she was with her sunshine. Charlie was one of those special souls. Sure, most kids were cute, but once in a while, you came across one that lit up the world with a smile. That was Charlie. She could light a thousand worlds, and still have some smile left over.

“Pleeeaaase!” said Charlie.

“Ughhh!” said Lucy. “Okay. But if I’m getting out of bed, I’m going to make it worth my while. You fancy some hot chocolate?” she asked, looking down at her daughter. Charlie’s eyes shone, and she nodded.

“And how ‘bout some ice cream to go with it?”

“Cookie dough! Cookie dough! Cookie dough!” cried Charlie.

“Oreo, did you say?”

“Nooo! Cookie dough, mommy!”

“Okay! Okay!” said Lucy, climbing out of the comfortable warmth of the bed. “Raspberry it is,” she said, beginning to chuckle to herself.

“Mommy! Nooo! I said cookie dough!” protested Charlie, laughing.

“Let me see what I can find,” said Lucy, heading out of the bedroom and down the stairs. She switched on the kettle, pulled two mugs from the tree, opened the fridge door, and picked out a can of squirty cream; then she opened the freezer and opened two drawers before finding a three quarter full tub of cookie dough ice cream. She put it on the countertop and got two spoons from draining board. “You want marshmallows, sweetie?” she shouted.

“Duhhh!” came the shout back.

Lucy laughed to herself. She was raising a ‘mini-me’. The kettle finally boiled and she heaped three spoonfuls of hot chocolate powder into each mug, before stirring vigorously, adding mini marshmallows for her mini-me, and squirting on a healthy dollop of cream. She picked up the mugs and walked through to the bookcase in the lounge. She didn’t need to search, she could pick the book out if she was blindfolded. Fourth shelf up, still low enough for Charlie to reach. First book—Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. She placed the tub of ice cream under her arm, put the shafts of the two spoons between her teeth, and levered out the book, placing it in her back pocket, before retrieving the ice cream and continuing her journey.

When she got back to the bedroom, there was no sign of her daughter. She placed one mug on one bedside cabinet, and one on the other, before placing the spoon and ice cream down and shuffling under the covers.

It was then that she remembered she’d put the book in her back pocket. She reached round and pulled it out, placing it down beside her mug. “Gee it’s too bad Charlie isn’t here. I’ve got hot chocolate, ice cream, and her favourite book. Looks like I’m just going to have to enjoy it all myself. Suddenly, she heard a scratchy shuffling from underneath the bed, and from the corner of her eye she saw a small arm reaching up towards the mug. Like lightning, Lucy grabbed hold of the arm and shifted the weight of her body so she could look underneath the bed. “Arrgghhh!” she said in her best monster voice.

Charlie looked at her mum and screamed with laughter. “How did you see me?” asked Charlie.

“I see all, little girl,” she replied in her best witch’s voice. Charlie giggled again. “C’mon, sweetie,” she said, returning to her own voice, “let’s have some ice cream and hot chocolate.

In a flash, the two of them were cuddled next to each other in bed, sharing a tub of ice cream and taking an occasional drink of hot chocolate. When they had finished the ice cream and were several sips in to the smooth rich chocolate drink, Lucy opened the pages of the book and began to read. Charlie pulled Lucy’s left arm up and tucked it around herself, resting her head on Lucy’s tummy.

“Your belly’s gurgling,” said the young girl, and they both laughed.

A few more minutes passed, and Charlie’s head began to feel heavy against Lucy’s stomach. “Charlie? Charlie?” she whispered again, but there was no response. Lucy put the paperback down on the bedside cabinet, leant in to kiss her little cherub on the head, and flopped back against the luxurious, cushioned headboard.

When Lucy woke, she looked in her arms, but there was no sign of Charlie. “Sweetie?” she called to no reply. She looked across at the bedside clock. Three fifteen pm. They really had been lazy this afternoon. “Charlie?” she called again, a smile appearing on her face. She really did have a mischievous streak.

Once again, there was no response. Where was she? “Charlie?” she called again. Suddenly, she saw a large bump under the quilt, it was moving slightly. How had her field of vision not picked up on that before? She grabbed hold of the corner of the quilt and flung it back. “Got you,” she laughed.

A creature that loosely resembled her daughter stared back. Blood and sinew dripped from its mouth and its fingers gripped Lucy’s leg with unnatural strength. When Lucy looked into its eyes, she realised it was no longer her daughter, it was anything but. Lucy’s thigh was bleeding uncontrollably, and a large chunk of flesh was missing just a few inches up from the knee. “Arrrggghhh!”

✽ ✽ ✽

Lucy’s eyes sprang open. “Jesus!” she said. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead and were running down to her brow. Her breathing was erratic and she laid there for a moment just staring at the ceiling, trying to calm down. “Jesus,” she said again before turning her head to see no sign of Charlie.

She jerked back the covers, and Charlie stared back, her eyes grey, but for a black shattered pupil, blood and flesh falling from her pallid lips as an inhuman growl bled from her throat.

“Arrrggghhh!” screamed Lucy.

CHAPTER TWO

Lucy opened her eyes. Tears were rolling down the sides of her face and into her hair. Her subconscious was so cruel. If it had something to say, why not come the hell out and say it? Why torture her with these horrific dreams?

Charlie had died in a car crash three years earlier. Her sweet little soul was laid to rest long before the outbreak, so why did her mind keep insisting on portraying her as a ghoul?

The tears began to flow faster as Lucy started to sob. “I miss you Charlie,” she said, turning onto her side and letting the steady stream drip onto her pillow. She looked through blurry eyes to the photo on the bedside table. “I miss my little girl,” she said again before clenching her eyes tight, making the tears pool. She wallowed for a moment, but then came a knock on the door.

“Lucy?” It was Samantha, the nurse who had been assigned to help her. “We’ve had a call. Cessation,” she said, pausing for a response.

Lucy dabbed her eyes on her quilt. “Give me five, sweetie,” she said, her voice a little shaky.

“Okay, came the reply.”

Lucy opened the top drawer of her bedside cabinet and put the photo inside, before removing a bottle of oxycodone. She flicked off the safety cap and shook one of the pills into her hand before jerking her head back and swallowing it. These pills were just a stopgap until she started to feel better. She could control it.

She went to the bathroom, turned on the shower and brushed her teeth while it warmed up. Warm was the operative word. This hospital camp had been set up hastily. She supposed she was lucky to have a shower at all, but she’d kill for something hot and powerful, not lukewarm like this. The soap and water washed away the tear stains, and within a minute, she was out of the shower and towelling herself dry. A cessation. “Shit,” she whispered. It was rare that these ever had happy endings.

She threw on her clothes, picked up her medical bag, placed the strap of the laptop bag over her shoulder, and headed out of her room. The camp had been erected around a half finished motel/motorway services, on the outskirts of Leeds. Parts of it looked like a nice hotel, parts of it looked like a building site, but it served its purpose.

“I brought you coffee,” said Samantha, handing her a ribbed paper cup with a lid.

“You’re the best,” replied Lucy, grabbing it, ignoring warnings about the coffee’s temperature, and taking a needy caffeine hit. “Oh yeah! That hits the spot,” she said in her soft New England accent. “So, where are we heading?”

“It’s about a mile and a half from Headingley,” replied Samantha.

“Headingley? Erm, is that where that croquet stadium is?” replied Lucy.

Samantha laughed. “It’s where the cricket ground is,” she replied.

“I keep getting those two mixed up,” said Lucy winking.

“Y’know, the thing is, I might actually know who this is,” said Samantha.

“Really? You want to sit this one out?” asked Lucy.

“Not for a second. It it’s the guy I think it is...not for a second,” she said, beginning to blush.

“Uh-huh, I see,” said Lucy.

“If it’s him, he used to go out with my sister,” she said as the pair began to walk down the hall.

“And you had the hots for him too?” asked Lucy.

“It wasn’t like that,” replied Samantha. “He was good looking, but, he was very, very intense, and a bit...unpredictable.”

“A good looking bad boy?” said Lucy teasing.

“I can’t explain. He was a really good guy, really good, but…”

“Dr. Blair?” asked a young soldier as he approached Lucy.

“Yeah,” she replied before taking another sip of coffee.

“I’m driving you today. Please follow me,” he said before turning back around and leading them out of the motel.

“Not much on small talk, is he?” said Lucy. Samantha just smiled.

The two women saw another armed soldier in the passenger seat of a waiting ambulance, and they went around to the back doors, while their escort climbed into the driving seat. As they got inside, they were greeted by two men in hazmat suits, holding what looked like gas masks in front of them. The engine started, and the military ambulance pulled away.

“Been to many of these?” asked one of the men in the hazmat suits.

“A few,” replied Lucy.

“Me and my mate here don’t take risks. If something looks dodgy, we shoot first and ask questions later,” he said in a cockney accent. “So, don’t you worry.” He tapped his sidearm and winked, “You’re safe with us.”

Lucy’s heart sank. The last thing she needed to deal with was a couple of gun toting conscripts. “I feel safer already,” she said.

The man smiled and nodded proudly, the sarcasm evading him completely.

CHAPTER THREE

The ambulance came to a halt, and the driver turned to look at Lucy, Samantha and the two hazmat agents. “Right, this is the place,” he said, before turning around again.

“Erm, okay,” said Lucy. “I guess that’s our cue to exit,” she said.

Samantha and Lucy climbed out of the ambulance first, closely followed by the two hazmat operatives.

“Remember,” said the hazmat man who had spoken to them earlier, “don’t worry about a thing, you’re well protected,” he said winking again.

The four of them walked up to the front door and Lucy rang the doorbell. A young man answered, his eyes were red, it was clear that he’d been crying, but there were no telltale trails on his face. “Mr. Michael Fletcher?” asked Lucy.

“Mike,” he replied, opening the door wider and ushering the four of them into the hall.

“My family’s through here,” he said, opening the living room door and waving Lucy and Samantha in. Lucy walked through first, and as Samantha passed Mike, their eyes met. His narrowed a little. He knew her from somewhere, but where? He closed the living room door behind the two women; then went back to the front door and looked outside to see if there was anybody else before shutting it and leading the hazmat men up the stairs.

Lucy and Samantha made their introductions to the young woman and two children. The whole family was in a state of shock. She hated this, this new age of perpetual suffering. When kids were involved, it always made it a thousand times worse. She saw her Charlie in the reflection of every child’s tear.

“Samantha and I are here to give you a little check-up to make sure you’re all okay. You’ve probably heard that some people are getting quite ill at the moment, and we want to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.” Lucy looked towards Emma. “Where’s the best place to do this? Ideally somewhere with a little privacy.”

Emma suggested the dining room. Lucy picked up her bags and asked for a moment to prepare before they began the examinations. She closed the door behind her and leant against it closing her eyes tightly. “Oh God,” she whispered, and reached into her pocket for a small plastic bottle. She had taken her last oxycodone tablet about an hour ago, but these were special circumstances. She needed another, just to get her through this. She placed one of the small pills on her tongue and cocked her head back to swallow. She winced a little as the bitter oxycodone tablet caught and dissolved on the back of her tongue on the way down. Okay, now she was ready. She set up the laptop and her equipment and headed back to the door. “Okay, Emma, would you like to come in?” she said smiling. Just another day at the surgery.

“Thank you,” said Emma as she helped her little brother, Jake, put his top back on.

Lucy sat watching them with a smile on her face, and she suddenly realised she had no recollection of the last few moments. The examinations were completed. The kids were putting their clothes back on. ‘Shit!’ what just happened? She checked the laptop. Her notes didn’t make much sense. She looked at the blood. Okay, she had collected and labelled the blood, that’s good. What else? She must have checked them over, they were putting their clothes back on. This had never happened to her before. She had never lost time. “Shit!” she whispered.

“Sorry, did you say something?” asked Emma.

“Erm, no, sorry, just having a disagreement with my laptop,” she said and went back to focussing on the screen. Okay, she thought to herself, this wasn’t a big deal. It was stress, overwork, lack of sleep, a combination of factors. Her mind had just engaged autopilot, that’s all, it was nothing to worry about, this happened to everyone. She would just tidy up her records, and get her head back into the game. While Emma helped the children, Lucy quickly deleted the garbled notes she had input and rewrote them, before placing the collected blood into a small protective case she had removed from her bag.

“Thank you again,” said Emma as Lucy got up from the table and walked to the door. She opened it for them and Emma led Jake out while Sammy, Mike and Emma’s younger sister, followed, struggling to put her top back on.

Lucy stood in the doorway, beckoning Mike into the room.

He entered and sat across from her, unaware of the drill. She typed some information into the laptop, broke off for a second to smile and apologised for the brief delay, and then quickly finished off her typing.

“Emma’s been telling me you’ve had quite a time,” she announced, then tilted her head sideways as if weighing up her patient.

“You could say that.”

“Well, this is going to be very brief, you’ll be glad to hear. I’m going to take a little blood from you and then give you a physical examination. The whole thing will probably take less than five minutes.” She noticed dark circles under Mike’s eyes. “When was the last time you slept?”

Mike exhaled deeply and screwed up his face in an attempt to jog his memory. “Two days ago. I think.”

“Whoa, you’re going to have to get some proper sleep! Do you want me to give you a mild sedative before I leave?”

“No thanks, doctor. As soon as I hit the pillow I’ll be out like a light. Plus, I’m not a big fan of taking drugs if I can avoid it.”

For a second, Lucy shivered with paranoia. “What do you mean?” she asked, with the start of a frown on her face. She instinctively reached to her pocket to make sure the plastic bottle was still there and she hadn’t dropped it somewhere. Paranoia worked in strange ways she realised, as she felt the hard plastic tub still safe.

“I just don’t like taking drugs. I prefer to let my body sort itself out if it can.”

“Shall we ask the black circles under your eyes how they feel about that?” she said sarcastically.

A look of surprised confusion came over Mike’s face and Lucy realised that her insecurity was unfounded, that he had just made an innocent off-the-cuff remark. She smiled disarmingly and stood up, placing her stethoscope in her ears and onto Mike’s chest in one fluid action. She then checked his ears and his pupillary response, and took a swab from the inside of his mouth. Mike offered his arm instinctively, and she doused a little alcohol onto a small patch of skin.

“Okay, you’re going to feel a little nip.”

Mike grimaced as the needle went into his arm. He looked away, hearing the hiss of the syringe as it slowly filled with his blood. His eye twitched a little as he thought back to the blood he had seen earlier that morning.

“Okay, all done. I’m out of lollipops, though, I’m afraid.” She smiled as she put a small plaster over the needle mark. “All righty then. If you could strip down for me while I get this labelled.”

Mike was clearly embarrassed but did as requested. Lucy placed the phial of blood in her case next to three others and wrote out a little label which she carefully attached. She entered some more notes into her laptop, and by the time she looked up again, Mike had stripped down and was standing with his hands carefully clasped in front of him.

“Head down, please,” she said as she flicked through his hair like she was looking for lice. She checked behind his ears, gently upturned his chin, moved one hand to the back of his head and kept one hand at the front to angle him towards the light. She extended his arms and checked both sides.

Mike was impressed by how thorough she was, and the embarrassment of being naked dissipated with the realisation that she probably did this dozens of times a day. The doctor completed her examination of the front of his body and gently turned him round. He felt her light hands touch his shoulders, and he could sense the movement behind him as she carried out the physical. Then she stopped. Mike heard her take a step back and felt the cold air against him when just seconds before it had been warmed by her breath. He heard footsteps move across to the door and the handle turn.

“Samantha, can you come in here a minute, please?” Lucy asked, sounding so casual that for a split second even Mike didn’t think anything was wrong.

The nurse walked through the door, closing it behind her. Silence.

Mike angled his head round, conscious of the fact that he was naked. He looked at the two faces behind him. Their eyes were focussed on his lower back, and he noticed that Lucy had unclipped a walkie-talkie from her belt. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Samantha slowly looked up. Her eyes met his, and where there had been compassion and warmth just a few minutes earlier, now there was sorrow. Her mouth opened slightly but nothing came out.

“Before using the RPA this morning, was there any contact between yourself and Mr. Munro?” Lucy asked clinically.

“No. Why?”

She raised the walkie-talkie towards her mouth, but Samantha gently grabbed her arm. “Mike, you’ve got a scratch just above your left buttock.”

A look of realisation swept over his face, and he let out a premature sigh of relief. “Bloody hell, you got me worried then.”

The walkie-talkie was inches away from Lucy’s mouth. “If you’ve got an explanation, I want to hear it quickly. Otherwise, I’m going to have to get the guards in here.”

“Look, this morning, after...well... I had to get Alex in the body bag by myself. Em was downstairs with the kids, and I just wanted the job done. I did the best I could, but I was rushing, and after I got his legs into the bag, I stood up quickly and caught myself on the corner of the chest of drawers. It was just a scrape, honestly.”

Lucy lowered the walkie-talkie. “Show us. Show us exactly what happened.”

“Do you mind if I put some clothes on first?”

“Hurry up.” The two women gave each other a look that Mike couldn’t read.

A minute later they entered the bedroom. Lucy noticed the wet patch next to the bed. “What’s that?” No compassion. This was still serious. Mike hadn’t convinced her.

“That’s where I threw my guts up after killing my stepfather.” Mike was getting annoyed with the doctor’s accusatory tone. “Look, I can’t even imagine the horrors you must have seen in the last few months, but this morning I... I did the most horrible, sickening thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I wanted to be strong for my family, because they need someone to be strong for them. But that sight, that realisation was too much for me, and I was sick. I vomited and retched until there was nothing left. I know that’s not manly or brave or heroic, but that’s what I did.” Mike’s voice shook as he relived the memory.

The stern look on the two women’s faces eased a little. “Mike, can you show us how you got scratched?” Samantha asked.

Mike went across to the chest of drawers and demonstrated. Lucy walked over and got him to do it again, pausing him at the point of impact and pulling his jogging pants down a little to see if she could marry the wound with the corner of the piece of furniture.

She re-clipped the walkie-talkie to her belt and stood there, studying Mike in silence. The seconds dragged into a minute, and she walked across to the chair Mike had been sitting in the previous night. She flopped into it and let out a deep breath.

“Well? Don’t leave me hanging, Doc,” Mike pleaded. “Do you believe me?”

She leaned forward and brushed her hands over her tired eyes. “We got a directive through this morning. I haven’t even had chance to share it with you yet, Samantha.” She looked at the young nurse and continued. “There have been mutterings about it for a couple of weeks now, but as of zero six hundred hours it became official. Scratch victims are to be dealt with the same as bite victims. No tolerance, no leeway. If a member of an infected household has injuries that are consistent with scratch marks, they’re meant to be treated as if they are infected.” Lucy looked down to the ground, defeated. “I do believe you, Mike, but that doesn’t matter according to the new rules.”

The colour drained from Mike’s face. “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if I follow the new directives, I have to get the guards in here now.”

“I swear on my life, on my sisters’ lives, on my brother’s life, I was not scratched by Alex. “Please, my family need me. Please don’t do this.” Mike looked at Samantha, who once again opened her mouth but couldn’t speak. The tension in the room was palpable.

“Don’t worry, Mike. I’m not going to report this. I think the new orders are madness. The measures that were brought in to deal with scratch victims were the best chance we had of developing a vaccine for this thing, but now it’s like they’ve just given up.” She sat back in the chair, drained.

“Lucy, are you okay?” Samantha asked, moving towards her.

“No. No, I’m not. Downstairs I was a few seconds away from having someone executed for scratching themselves on a piece of furniture. I honestly don’t know what the hell we’re doing any more.”

Samantha crouched down beside Lucy and spoke gently. “You’re doing everything you can. A lot of doctors back at the base wouldn’t have paused for a second. You did. You’ve done the right thing, and you haven’t just saved one life today, you’ve saved four.”

Lucy smiled sadly and stood up. “Well, we’d better get back to the base.”

“Doc, I owe you one. Stuff that, I owe you a damn sight more than one.”

“Keep your family safe, Mike, and we’ll call it even,” she said and left the room.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lucy walked out of the door and saw the two soldiers chatting in the front of the ambulance, they did not see her. She ducked around the side of the house and crouched down, with her back against the wall. A flood of tears streamed down her face. She was in Hell. She had died the day her Charlie had died, and this was it now. She had gone to Hell, and she was going to have to suffer like this for eternity. Every child would remind her of what she had lost. Every moment would be one more that she had to suffer, alone, in a nightmarish world where things made less sense by the day.

She took a breath and wiped her tears away. She couldn’t let anyone see her like this. She was hanging on by a thread as it was. The last thing she needed was for some well-meaning do-gooder psycho-analysing her. She shimmied up the wall, wadded the bottom of her sleeves, gave her eyes one final dab and walked back down the path to the ambulance. She climbed in to see the body bag laid out on the opposite gurney. The two men in hazmat suits sat looking at it, lost in their own thoughts. Samantha climbed into the back of the ambulance shortly afterwards. Her cheeks were an uncharacteristic bright pink, and despite the last few moments, Lucy forced a smile to at least try and give the impression nothing was amiss.

“So, he remembered you,” said Lucy as the engine started and the military ambulance pulled away.

“We were just talking. He asked me to thank you again,” replied Samantha.

“Uh-huh, and how did he thank you exactly?” Lucy teased.

“Get lost,” said Samantha turning bright red and giggling a little.

“Hey, I don’t judge. You’ve got to get your fun where you can,” Lucy replied. “He had a great ass too, I wouldn’t blame you,” she forced a smile.

“Stop it!” said Samantha turning a beetroot colour.

Samantha was a sweet girl. She was the closest thing that Lucy had to a friend, but Lucy didn’t want closeness. All she wanted was to be left alone with her thoughts of another world and another time. A friendly chat and a laugh every now and again was the closest she wanted to get to anyone. The noise of the engine drowned out the last chortles from Samantha, and they remained silent for the rest of the journey ‘home’. Was this really what counted as home now?

Home used to mean family more than a building. Home was mom and dad and a brother. Home was spending summer working at her uncle’s farm, and being happy. Happiness! She could almost remember that feeling. She could almost reach out and touch the mental images that danced in front of her that once made her happy. But that’s all they were now...images. She doubted that life on this planet had much longer to run, and the chances of her finding happiness again were non-existent. So, she would spend whatever remaining time she had in contemplation, waiting until she was taken and could join her beloved Charlie once again. It wouldn’t be long.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Samantha as the ambulance pulled into the car park of the motel and attached field hospital.

“Huh?” replied Lucy.

“I was asking what you were thinking. You had a smile on your face.”

I was thinking about dying so I could finally leave this fucking nightmare behind and be back with my little girl. “Oh, erm, nothing,” she replied.

“A few of us are going to have a couple of drinks tonight, do you fancy joining us?” asked Samantha.

“More homemade wine?” asked Lucy.

“No, actually. Zofia and Amelia, the polish sisters, they made some blackberry vodka. It hits the spot,” said Samantha, with a genuine smile on her face.

“Not for me, I think I’ll get an early night, if I’m allowed. God knows how many more times we’ll get called out today before we can rest.”

“Actually, you and I aren’t on call for the rest of the day...Dr. Ramirez and Olivia are the on call staff,” replied Samantha.

“Oh. That’s good. It will give me time to catch up with my ward rounds.”

The ambulance came to a stop and Lucy and Samantha climbed out, while the hazmat team dealt with the body. Lucy put the strap to her laptop case over her shoulder and strolled back into the half-built motel, with Samantha by her side.

“You should take some time out for yourself too, y’know,” said Samantha.

“Thanks, but maybe another time,” replied Lucy.

“Okay,” said Samantha, smiling, “I’ll hold you to that.

The pair parted, and Lucy headed back to her room. The ward rounds could wait a while. She needed to just crawl under the covers and reboot.

When she woke up it was four pm. What was going to be a short power nap turned into a full on afternoon siesta. Her stomach grumbled, and she realised she hadn’t eaten anything since the previous evening. She threw some cold water over her face and headed to the mess, which was what would have been a large food court. The signs for various fast food chains were lit up in cruel goading, as the meals that were dished out bore no resemblance to the mouthwatering options illuminated on the wall menus.

Lucy took her tray and opted for a simple pasta dish, some salad and a crusty roll. She was about to sit down when she heard her name called.

“Lucy!” She looked up to see Samantha beckoning her to a table where she was sitting with a few other girls.

“Crap,” she whispered under her breath, before forcing yet another smile, and heading over.

Lucy was introduced to the other women. Two of the names she recognised from earlier. “So, you’re the bootleggers?” asked Lucy smiling.

Zofia and Amelia laughed. “You could say that. It was our grandfather’s recipe. People from our country still stick with tradition. There are a lot of garden shed stills,” said Zofia, giggling.

“You should come join us,” added Amelia.

“That’s very kind, but…”

“Oh, come on,” said Samantha. “It’s always a really good laugh. When was the last time you really let your hair down?”

Before my daughter was murdered by a drunk driver. Why do you ask? “It’s been a while,” she replied.

“Come on, it will be fun,” said Zofia.

“I need to do my rounds,” replied Lucy.

“Fine, when you’re done, it’s room twenty-three, we’ll have started without you,” said Amelia.

They all seemed kind, and friendly and determined not to let the whole end of the world thing beat them. “Okay,” said Lucy, disbelieving what she heard coming from her own mouth.

CHAPTER FIVE

The government had implemented a set of proactive rules and procedures in the event of an outbreak. The city of the outbreak would be put into lockdown, quarantined. Hospitals would be closed and all non-critical patients would be sent home where relatives and visiting medical professionals would take care of them. There was a strict curfew in place. All commerce came to a halt, unless someone worked for a utilities company or an industry that was deemed vital for the continuing function of a district, they had to stay in their homes. The army and police, patrolled the streets, and the only time the general public was allowed to leave their house was on rations day. On these days, a large public or commercial property became a distribution centre, and people would show up with a ration voucher, claim their family’s weekly food, toiletries and hygiene supplies, and head back home.

It seemed draconian, but sometimes, draconian measures were what was needed to stave off total disaster. The dead coming back to life and feeding on the living, that fell under the ‘disaster’ category. The total part, well, that had been avoided for the time being.

So the field hospital that had been set up on the outskirts of Leeds, one of two cities where an official outbreak had been identified, was for those patients who were critical and could not be cared for in their homes. There were more armed soldiers than medical staff present, just in case, but no incidents had occurred during the time Lucy had been there.

There weren’t a huge amount of patients at the hospital, and even less were under Lucy’s care, but she felt duty bound to check in on them every day, even though a whole host of other qualified medical staff had attended to them.

Lucy always saved Miss Darwin to the end. She was a retired school teacher. She had never married and had no family to look after her. She suffered from motor neurone disease and up until recently had been adequately cared for in a nursing home, but after developing pneumonia, she had needed hospitalisation. Despite her suffering, Miss Darwin was always full of positivity and fight, and it did Lucy’s soul good to spend time with her.

Because of her condition, her mouth muscles didn’t work too well, and a lot of people had difficulty understanding her, but not Lucy.

She walked into the facelifted shipping container, passed two empty beds and sat down at the side of Miss Darwin. “Hi, Peggy, how are you today, sweetie?” asked Lucy.

“Still not dead,” she said with a wry smile on her face.

“Good to know,” replied Lucy, looking at Peggy’s chart.

“Find yourself a man today?” asked Peggy.

Lucy laughed. “Two actually. One’s taking me out for a meal tonight, one tomorrow. I’ll bring you a doggy bag.”

Peggy nodded. “Nothing too spicy, it gives me heartburn,” she replied.

Lucy smiled and reached out, taking hold of Peggy’s hand. “How are you feeling? Seriously.”

“Seriously...my chest feels better than yesterday. My breathing’s a little easier.”

“That’s good,” said Lucy, putting the ear-tips of the stethoscope in and placing the bell on Peggy’s chest. “Breathe for me,” she said.

“I am breathing,” replied Peggy, “It’s a habit I’ve had since birth.”

“Funny! Now take deep breaths, in and out,” said Lucy. Peggy did as she was asked, and Lucy removed the bell and pulled the tips out of her ears. “That’s good, it does sound better than it did.”

“Told you. You’re not getting rid of me so soon,” said Peggy smiling.

“I’m glad about that, sweetie,” said Lucy. She jotted some notes on Peggy’s chart and sat down.

“So, having another early night?” asked Peggy.

“No such luck. I got dragged into a night in with the girls,” replied Lucy.

Suddenly, Peggy’s face lit up. “That’s wonderful. You need to let your hair down now and then.”

“I’ve let my hair down plenty in the past. Now I just want to sleep,” she said.

“Youth is wasted on the young,” replied Peggy.

“I suppose I better go,” replied Lucy. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said getting up and beginning to head out.

“No, you won’t,” said Peggy.

Lucy spun back around, “What do you mean?”

“Your dinner date. Remember, nothing too spicy for me,” said Peggy and laughed to herself.

“Of course, I’d forgotten already,” Lucy winked, “See you tomorrow, Peggy.”

✽ ✽ ✽

The hallway was deserted. Lucy walked down, checking the door numbers. Twenty-two...and twenty-three. She paused before knocking. She could go back to her room and say she just felt too tired. “Screw it,” she said. Maybe just one drink. She rapped on the wood three times.

“You came,” said Samantha, smiling widely as she opened the door and pulled Lucy in by her hand, sensing her hesitation.

“I just finished my rounds. I thought I’d drop in for one drink,” said Lucy.

“You’ve only just got here,” said Samantha. “Don’t make excuses to leave already.”

Lucy smiled politely, and Zofia walked up to her with an empty glass in one hand and a bottle of purple fluid in the other. “One drink,” she said in her quiet, polish voice. She proceeded to fill the tumbler to the top with the blackberry vodka. “There,” she said, nodding, “one drink.” All the women, including Lucy, laughed.

“We are all friends here. We have all suffered. We have all lost. For one night we can forget troubles outside this room and laugh. Surely we all deserve one night without tears?” said Amelia and raised her glass. “Na zdrowie. This is cheers,” she added smiling.

The other women raised their glasses too. “Cheers” they all said at the same time.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, Lucy thought. Maybe it would help her forget just a little of the pain that she wore every day like a thick black cloak. She took a sip of the blackberry vodka. “Oh my God! This stuff’s good,” she said.

“Told you,” replied Samantha.

“Our grandfather’s recipe,” said Zofia. “It’s good, yes?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Lucy taking another drink.

“Of course, you won’t be able to feel your legs tomorrow, but who cares about that tonight?” said Amelia, and they all laughed again.

CHAPTER SIX

Lucy opened one eye. The other was pressed too tightly against a pillow to open for the time being. Where was she? This wasn’t her bed. This wasn’t any bed. She was on a couch, and the pillow was a cushion. Her tongue had the texture of carpet, and her head was fuzzy. She felt like she should have a headache, but for the time being, one evaded her. She looked around the room with her one eye and saw Samantha on the floor with a blanket over her. She was awake and smiling.

“Morning,” said Samantha quietly, trying not to wake up Zofia and Amelia who were still sleeping well.

“What happened?” asked Lucy.

“It’s good stuff that vodka, isn’t it?” said Samantha and let out a little laugh.

“Erm, I guess so,” replied Lucy.

“You and me were pretty well gone by one. The girls said, ‘Why not sleep here?’ It seemed like a good idea at the time,” said Samantha.

“What time is it?”

“Five-thirty,” said Samantha.

Just then, there was a loud knock on the door. The two women looked at each other, a little confused and still more than a little woozy. Zofia rushed to the door and opened it. It was the ambulance driver from the previous day.

He looked past Zofia and straight at Lucy. “Somebody said you were here.” There were no secrets in a base this small. “Cessation call!” he said.

“We’re not on call,” she replied.

“We are. The on-call team hasn’t been heard from in over ninety minutes. They’re sending a squad out to their last reported location. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes,” he said, and turned to go.

“Shit!” said Lucy. “That was “Ramon and Olivia wasn’t it?” Samantha nodded. The levity from the evening before gone in an instant.

Zofia closed the door and leant back against the wall. She knew Olivia well. Amelia went across, and they both hugged. All four of them knew what losing contact was code for. Since the quarantine had been in place, there had only been one such instance. It sent shockwaves through the whole base for days, but then no one had spoken about it again.

“C’mon,” said Samantha, getting up. “We’d better get ready.” Both of them had sobered instantly. They said their goodbyes and headed back to their own rooms.

✽ ✽ ✽

Lucy still wanted a really hot shower, but the tepid water felt good on her face anyway. She thought about Ramon and Olivia, what had probably happened to them, and how she and Samantha ran that same risk every time they went out on a call. She knew scratch victims were the best way to find a vaccine for this virus. She knew there had been documented cases abroad of scratch victims actually surviving, but the infrastructure in those countries had collapsed before a vaccine could be developed. She also knew that it was because of the danger they presented that the government was bringing in the policy that all fresh scratch victims were going to be euthanized; and it would probably be extended to existing scratch victims when they had the manpower to deal with it. On the one hand, if it had happened, Ramon and Olivia would still be alive, on the other hand, in the long term, the best chance of ever finding a vaccine would be gone.

She climbed out of the shower, wrapped a towel around herself and laid down on the bed. She opened her bedside cabinet drawer and pulled out the picture of the little girl on the swing. “I love you, Charlie,” she said, kissing the photo. In that moment, she forgot about Ramon, Olivia and the day ahead.

After the episode with losing time when she had taken two oxycodone tablets in quick succession, Lucy didn’t feel a need or urge to take any more that day, but now, now she craved the numbness again. She reached for the cloudy brown plastic bottle and flicked off the safety cap. She swallowed one of the tablets and placed the bottle at the back of the drawer, covering it with a handful of socks. She looked at the photo again and placed that back in the drawer too, before getting ready to fight through another day.

Lucy was tying her boots when the knock came on the door. It was Samantha, holding out a large coffee for her friend.

“You really are the best. Have I told you that lately?” said Lucy taking the coffee.

“Have you heard the latest rumour?” asked Samantha.

“No, what?

“London, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham,” said Samantha.

“What about them?” replied Lucy sipping her coffee.

“They’ve all had outbreaks in the last few days.”

Lucy brought the cup away from her mouth and gulped. “Jesus, let’s hope they’re nothing more than rumours,” she said.

“Let’s hope,” repeated Samantha.

Most of the rumours that were circulated at the medical base ended up being true, and both women had butterflies in their stomach as they walked out to the ambulance. The driver and his mate were standing outside the vehicle smoking roll ups.

“‘Ello again,” said the driver.

“Hi,” replied Samantha.

“Just talking about the latest news,” said the driver.

“What news?” asked Samantha.

“Y’know, the outbreaks,” he said taking a final puff on his cigarette before throwing it to the floor and extinguishing it with his boot.

“Those are just rumours,” said Samantha, fishing.

“Yeah! Rumours,” replied the driver, and he and the other soldier let out a small laugh.

“You think they’re true?”

“I think they’re the tip of the iceberg, sweetheart,” he said. “C’mon then, we’ve got important work to do,” he said letting out another laugh.

The two women looked towards one another, the butterflies intensifying, before climbing in to the back of the ambulance.

Two hazmat men, different to the ones from the day before, greeted them with a nod before resuming their gaze to the opposite wall of the ambulance. The engine started and the wheels began to turn.

Lucy and Samantha sat next to each other and remained silent, digesting the information. There had been dozens of rumours flying around the base over the past few weeks. They got told no more than was on the television or radio. Even the soldiers didn’t know what was going on. There were probably only a few people in the whole of the country who did. It was a time for misinformation. All the measures, all the structures that had been put in place had given Britain the best chance of surviving, but it had been a house of cards, and now, it sounded like the bottom row had just started burning.

They’d been travelling for fifteen minutes when Samantha broke the silence. “I’m starving.”

Lucy looked at her watch. “We can get some chow at the distribution centre.”

“Can’t they speed this thing up?” asked Samantha.

Suddenly, the ambulance came to a screeching halt.

“Fuck!” said the driver and passenger simultaneously.

Lucy and Samantha, both got up from their seats and walked to the front where they could see the road ahead.

Samantha let out a childlike cry of disbelief and put her hand up to cover her mouth.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” said Lucy, as the two hazmat men joined them.

While the Policewoman was still struggling on the floor, the RAM, the acronym the army used for the reanimated corpses, was not interested in the ambulance. It just knelt there, pinning the dying woman to the ground, taking a mouthful of bloody flesh from its victim’s neck.

All the occupants of the ambulance were in shock. They had seen a lot over the past weeks, but they had not seen anything like this. The driver and his mate began to fumble for their sidearms. They were conscripts, they had not seen active service and their nerves and amateurism showed. They had been given rudimentary training and then a host of various babysitting assignments, this being the latest one.

“What do we do?” asked the passenger.

“Headshots, remember? We’ve got to get them in the head,” he replied.

“Can’t we just drive over it and smash it to hell?” asked the passenger.

“Erm. Yeah, actually, yeah, I suppose we can,” the driver replied, immediately feeling relief that he would not need to climb out of the vehicle.

The passenger picked up the radio handset. “Control this is Mobile Three, over,” he said sounding more nervous than Samantha or Lucy felt.

“Mobile Three, this is Control, pass message, over,” said the female voice.

Just then, two shots rang out, then a third, and the head of the bloody chinned attacker exploded, collapsing onto his now still victim. The occupants of the ambulance just stared, open mouthed.

“Mobile Three, are you reading me? This is Control, pass message. Over.”

The passenger of the ambulance looked down at the handset, for a moment, everything was a strange dream. Then he snapped back to reality. “Erm, Control, erm, no message, it’s all over now, over and out,” he said, placing the handset, which crackled a response, back in the holder.

He brought his eyes back up to the scene in front of him, just as the downed policewoman began to struggle to get up from under the weight of her fallen attacker. The dead weight shifted, and he saw that the police woman was no longer a policewoman, but one of these devilish atrocities. “This isn’t fucking happening,” he said under his breath.

The RAM sat upright and looked straight ahead towards the ambulance. The blood was still gushing from the wound in its neck, and its skin had already turned a more pallid hue. Its lips peeled back from its teeth in a snarl that sent shivers down the spines of the six occupants of the ambulance.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” said the driver.

All six of them felt it, like a communion. Even though they were in the relative safety of the ambulance, it was like they were out there, with the creature, face to face, no protection. Then another shot boomed, and the side of the RAM’s head erupted in a fountain of blood. As if frozen in time, the beast remained upright, the snarl now engrained on its face until the day it decomposed, then it fell back, its head bouncing on the tarmac.

Three soldiers emerged from a side street, each still training their rifles on the downed corpses. They stood over the bodies for a few seconds, the lead soldier nudged one of the creatures with his foot before he looked towards the ambulance and just waved them round as if he was directing them around roadworks.

The driver of the ambulance had been in the same morbid trance as the others, but now, realising there was an opportunity to put distance between himself and this gruesome scene, he engaged first gear and the vehicle began to move away. It veered around the soldiers and the bodies, the driver’s mate looked with frightened eyes as they passed the scene. He wasn’t thirty-one anymore, he was just a little boy, now and despite what his mother had told him to help him get back to sleep when he’d had a nightmare, monsters were most definitely real.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lucy watched as the syringe gradually filled with blood. And that’s the last name on the list, she thought to herself as she handed Samantha the phial. Lucy smiled and nodded politely towards the female soldier. She’d forgotten her name almost as soon as she had been told it. It was the stress and the weariness. Those things made you forgetful, she told herself.

“Thank you doctor,” said the young woman as she slipped out through the small gap of daylight in the curtains. A partition had been hastily erected in one corner of the distribution depot to give soldiers some small modicum of privacy while they had a quick exam and blood taken.

The ambulance driver popped his head through the curtain. “Apparently, there’s another coach load of soldiers coming in for check-ups, they’re emailing the list to you now. So much for us getting away early,” he said, before disappearing again.

Lucy and Samantha looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “No rest for the wicked, I suppose,” said Samantha. “How about we get a bit of brekky before they arrive?”

“That sounds like a plan,” said Lucy, closing the laptop.

The two of them headed out of the makeshift examination room and towards a fast food trailer that had been commandeered by the army. Next to it was a double decker bus, which was adapted so pairs of double seats faced each other, leaving enough room to house a plastic table in between. The choice wasn’t wide, but the pair of them walked away with a plate of scrambled eggs on toast and a mug of coffee each. They climbed the steps of the double decker and walked past a few seats taken by soldiers before finding a space near the back of the bus.

“I am absolutely famished,” said Samantha, sawing through a piece of the dry toast with her knife before piling it and a small mountain of eggs into her mouth.

“Clearly,” replied Lucy, smiling, as a chunk of egg fell from the corner of Samantha’s mouth.

Samantha smiled and wiped her mouth with her hand. “Sorry,” she said, I’m just so hungry.

“No need to apologise, sweetie,” said Lucy taking a sip of coffee and beginning to eat her breakfast in a more sedate manner.

The two women ate in relative quiet, occasionally looking around the bus to study the other occupants. Cafes and canteens were often bustling and noisy when filled with this many people, but the mood was bordering on mournful. It was like a grey cloud hung over the bus. Had the rumours about the other cities been circulating here too? Had they found out something more? Were they even just rumours anymore? wondered Lucy.

Samantha placed her knife and fork neatly in the centre of her empty plate. “That was so good,” she said, taking a drink of coffee.

“Hey, isn’t that erm…your friend’s sister? The one from yesterday?” asked Lucy, pointing out of the window.

“Yeah, it’s Emma. I should go say hello,” she said getting up before pausing, realising Lucy hadn’t finished her breakfast.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, I’ll finish, then I’ll take our plates back, you go say hi.”

Samantha disappeared and Lucy sat back in the seat. She watched as her friend tried to attract Emma’s attention, then began looking around the bus again. There was a muted conversation going on between two female soldiers on a table diagonally across from her. Lucy pricked up her ears to see if she could listen. Lucy had been in the country long enough to identify certain accents, and the girl who was talking was definitely from Birmingham or thereabouts.

“...Been trying all morning but the lines are dead,” said the first soldier.

“Look,” said the second putting her hand across the table and taking the first woman’s hand. “Y’know what rumours are like. It could be something simple. It could be another cyberattack. The phone network might have gone down. It could be anything. Don’t think the worst.”

The first soldier looked across the table to her companion. “I can feel it. I can feel it in my bones. They’re gone.” Suddenly, as if sensing she was being watched, the young woman looked across at Lucy, who immediately put her mug down and began to clear away the plates.

Part of Lucy felt guilty for intruding on a private conversation, part of her felt scared. Birmingham was one of the cities Samantha had mentioned. Was this it? Was everything starting to crumble?

She returned the plates and mugs to the fast food trailer, and headed back inside to wait for the next coach load of soldiers to arrive. Samantha caught up with her before she reached the curtained off corner of the warehouse where they were destined to spend the next few hours.

Once inside, they sat down. Samantha smiled as she recounted her conversation with Emma back to Lucy, but the smile disappeared when Lucy told her the snippet of the conversation she had heard between the two soldiers.

“Surely if that was the case, something would have been made public,” said Samantha.

“You mean like they have with everything else? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming them. If they broadcast that the outbreaks are out of control, that’s it. Game over. The state taking over all media was the smartest thing to do, but it means that we have no idea what’s really going on. I guess the only ones who really do are in a bunker somewhere in London.”

“I feel sick all of a sudden,” said Samantha, putting her hand over her stomach.

“You want something for it?” asked Lucy.

“Yes. How about a one-way ticket to a small pacific island with no RAMs?”

“I’ll look in my bag, sweetie, but the best I can manage is probably some Metoclopramide,” Lucy replied.

“I’ll be okay,” said Samantha, “It’ll pass.”

Both women let out gasps as the curtains were flung open by the ambulance driver. “Quick!” he said, “There’s been an attack. They need a doctor.”

“Where?” asked Lucy as she picked up her medical bag and began to head to the ambulance. Samantha followed, the sick feeling in her stomach gradually getting worse.

“Up the road,” he said.

“Do we have any details?” asked Lucy.

“Yeah, I got told to get you, and head up the road until we hear gunshots and see bodies. Are those enough details?” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Dick!” muttered Lucy as her and Samantha got into the back of the ambulance. The two hazmat men sat there, with their masks already on. They didn’t turn their heads this time, and they already had their sidearms drawn.

Samantha and Lucy nearly lost their footing as the ambulance wheels spun away, causing black streaks on the tarmac. Both women fell into their seat and gripped it as the engine revved higher. They could hear other vehicles behind them, probably carrying soldiers.

In all this time, they had never been called to an actual attack scene. Their pulses raced and Lucy turned to look at Samantha who was physically shaking. She took hold of the nurse’s hand. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay,” she said, only half believing the words herself. She tightened her grip as the sound of two vehicles overtaking the ambulance almost deafened them.

“It’s just up ahead,” shouted the soldier in the passenger seat, as he looked back into the ambulance.

Lucy tried to stand to get a view, but the journey was far too rocky. She didn’t have to wait long, though, as the ambulance screeched to a halt. Her and Samantha climbed out expecting to see the hazmat men following them, however, they chose to stay seated. Lucy gave them a look before following Samantha. There was a young woman, sitting on a box. Two army trucks had parked in a V shape in front of her and there was the sound of running feet and gunshots.

Samantha went up to the young woman, “Emma?” she asked, bending down to help her. Emma looked at Samantha unable to speak. She reached out and took a tight hold of the nurse’s hand. She could only look at her as the sound of gunfire proceeded down the road. Lucy came to join the two young women and crouched down next to Emma.

“Emma? Emma? Tell me what’s happening. Emma?” Lucy checked her eyes and was about to measure her pulse when Emma snapped back to reality.

“How do you do it?”

The two medics looked at each other puzzled. “Do what?” Lucy asked.

“How do you deal with being out here? Day after day.”

“What else is there?”

Emma had no response. There was nothing else now. This was the new way of life, for as long as it lasted. She sat there a moment in silence and was about to stand up when she saw three soldiers approaching. Two were armed and one was not. She noticed that the one without a weapon had blood over his front.

“Need to get him checked over, doctor. He’s been in a close-contact situation with a RAM.” The soldier who had spoken pushed the blood-caked troop forward. He started toward the ambulance then stopped and looked at Emma.

Lucy instinctively began to scan him up and down for possible injuries as he spoke, Emma meanwhile had decided she’d seen enough gruesomeness for one day and was getting ready to continue her journey, wobbly legs or not. “You’re the one who shouted out. You’re the one who warned me aren’t you?” he said, staring Emma straight in the eyes. She just nodded. “That was very brave, Miss. What you did saved my life.” He stepped forward and she instinctively took half a step back—he was covered in blood—but then stopped herself. She kept her arms by her sides, and he grabbed hold of her elbows firmly, yet with a degree of warmth. “Thank you. Thank you.” And with that, he released her and stepped into the ambulance.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lucy followed him in, and the two hazmat men turned their masked faces towards them, got up and squeezed by, exiting the ambulance. Lucy just shook her head. “Take a seat,” she said to the soldier, gesturing towards the gurney.

She put a stainless steel bowl next to him. “Here,” she said, taking the cap off a large bottle of alcohol. “Wash up.” She poured the clear liquid over his hands and into the bowl, placing some gauze down and took another wad of gauze to clean some blood on his cheek and head. “Okay,” she said after he dried his hands. “I’m going to need you to strip.”

Unlike civilians, the soldiers were used to regular examinations, so he just did as he was asked. “In my life, I’ve never been that scared,” he said as he unbuttoned his bloody shirt. “Are you religious?” he asked, taking off his t-shirt and revealing a cross tattooed on his chest.

“I used to go to church,” replied Lucy, putting on a pair of latex gloves.

“Well I’m religious, as you can probably guess,” he said, nodding down to his tattoo. “This cross, I’m sure it’s what protected me today. I’m sure the man upstairs sent that girl along to warn me.”

“I don’t know, I’m not really an expert on that kind of thing,” she replied, as he removed his trousers, boxers and socks.

Lucy started the examination. “I know one thing,” said the soldier as she leaned his head forward and carefully checked through his hair for cuts or grazes. “The Lord, he had nothing to do with those things. The RAMs were sent from somewhere entirely different.” He looked up at her, and she momentarily pulled her hands away. There was something about him that creeped her out. It wasn’t just his words, it was his faith in them. She pulled his head down again and continued the examination, a little faster than before. She just wanted to get this guy out of her ambulance.

“Did you get any saliva or blood in your mouth?” asked Lucy.

“No, nothing like that,” he said.

She inspected the rest of his body. There were some old battle scars, but nothing fresh, nothing that could be attributed to a RAM. “Okay, you can put your clothes back on” she said, reaching into an overhead storage unit. Lucy then pulled out a Toughbook, flipped it open and started typing. She took the soldiers details and then opened a different overhead unit, this time removing a syringe. She removed the polythene, took out a cotton wool ball from a small plastic jar, and said, “I need to take some blood.”

The soldier presented his arm as if it was second nature. “Take all you need.”

“You’re going to feel a nip,” she said inserting the needle and filling the syringe with blood. When it was full, in one smooth movement, she withdrew it and pressed the ball of cotton wool against the puncture. “Here, hold this,” she said while she labelled the phial, and placed it in a small plastic container. She reached for a plaster and peeled the packet open, “Okay, let me see,” she said. The soldier removed the cotton wool ball and Lucy placed the plaster over the small spot of blood. “There,” she said. “You seem fine. I’ll let you finished getting dressed.” She climbed out of the ambulance and went across to see the two soldiers who had delivered her patient.

“Well?” one of them said.

“He seems fine, but keep a close eye on him over the next few days, just in case.”

“Okay, Doctor,” they both replied at the same time.

Her patient came to join them, buttoning up his bloodied shirt. “Clean bill of health lads,” he said with a smile on his face, “I could do with a fresh shirt though.” The three of them walked away together, and Lucy suddenly felt cold as she remembered his words: The RAMS were sent from somewhere entirely different.

Lucy still had a little faith left. Not much, but a little. Was it possible? Could these things have been sent from Hell? That was crazy. She was getting paranoid. It was a virus, probably a man-made virus, something that had been developed in a lab as a bio-weapon. But still—the dead returning to life. That was… She shook her head. She had enough to worry about without throwing questions she would never know the answer to into the mix.

She walked to the front of the ambulance and saw Emma leaning up against it with her box of rations beside her. Samantha was holding her hand and talking to her. “We ready to go?” asked Lucy.

“I said we’d drop Emma off,” said Samantha.

“Hell, that’s the least we can do,” replied Lucy. “You saved that guy’s life.”

When they climbed into the back of the ambulance, the hazmat men had reappeared. They had removed their masks and were talking to one another. Lucy just looked at them with contempt. The short journey to deliver Emma safely to her home was in virtual silence, and no sooner had she got out of the ambulance than the wheels began to turn again, and before long, Lucy and Samantha were back in their cubicle awaiting the next procession of check-ups, and sipping coffee out of paper cups.

“That guy,” said Lucy, “The one I had to do the medical on. He said something that really freaked me out.”

“Go on,” said Samantha, before taking another drink.

“He thinks these things were sent from Hell.”

“What things?”

“The RAMs.”

“That’s mental,” said Samantha.

“Is it? I mean, isn’t it as valid an answer as any other? I mean…Jesus. The dead are coming back to life Samantha.”

Samantha leaned forward and reached out to put a hand on Lucy’s leg. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, sure, I’m fine. He just...he just creeped me out a little, that’s all.”

“I’m not surprised,” replied Samantha. “That’s the last bloody thing you’d want to hear after the morning we’ve had.”

“Knock, knock,” said a male voice before a chubby cheeked man wearing a pair of oversized glasses on his face poked his head through the curtains. “Is the clinic ready for business?” he asked. “The coach has arrived.”

“Yep,” said Lucy, “Ready and raring to go.

The morning and early afternoon went quickly as soldier after soldier came through the curtains for a basic check-up and to give a blood sample. Lucy and Samantha worked well as a team. Before Samantha, Lucy had worked with a number of nurses, but the pair of them had gelled. It was almost as if Samantha knew what Lucy needed without her saying it. They broke for lunch and returned to the fast food van. They each took a slice of pizza and a side of fries before heading to the double decker canteen once again. Downstairs was full this time, so they headed to the upper level which they had to themselves. They sat down and looked out at all the milling bodies. It was easy to identify the civilians. They all wore high vis vests. A different colour for a different time slot. Simple but ingenious. A way to make sure nobody was breaking curfew.

“You’re still thinking about what that soldier said to you aren’t you?” said Samantha.

Lucy smiled. “You know me too well.”

“Listen, we’ll get done here, head back to base, then go and chill again with Zofia and Amelia. You’ll soon forget about him then,” said Samantha.

“Actually, that sounds like an awesome plan,” replied Lucy. “So they’ve made a few bottles?”

Samantha laughed. “Those girls are a bloody cottage industry.”

“Cool,” said Lucy looking at her watch. “It’s one-thirty. We’ve got another eight check-ups. We should be out of here by four at the latest.”

The pair of them sat in silence for a while, eating their food and watching the figures below. Considering the circumstances, the food was good and it wasn’t long before they were staring at empty plates. They sat back in the comfort of the chairs and let their meals digest for a few minutes. They looked out of the window again and watched the activity below. There was a wide cross section of people collecting rations. Some had come ready with shopping bags. Some were leaving with rubble sacks full of provisions. Others carried boxes. Some were old, some were young. Some men, some women. Some black, some white. All with stories to tell.

“I wonder how Emma got on,” said Samantha, almost laughing. “Mike would have been so pissed off.”

“He looks like he could have a temper,” replied Lucy.

“He was sent to a young offenders institute,” Samantha blurted. By the odd look on her face Lucy could tell she had not meant to divulge this.

“For what?”

“It’s a bit sad, but… He beat a priest half to death,” said Samantha.

“What?”

“Mike’s mum got cancer and it was a slow, drawn out death. When she did pass away, Sammy asked the priest if her mum would go to heaven. The priest said no, but he’d pray for her soul.”

“Wait a minute, what?” said Lucy.

“Mike’s mum had divorced Mike’s and Emma’s dad, and the priest had no intention of sugar coating the word of God. Sammy broke down, and Mike just lost it. It took three men to stop him.”

“Sounds like the priest had what was coming to him,” said Lucy.

“So, yeah, he has a bit of a temper, but he’s a good guy. I remember how he was with my sister when they were going out. Very caring, very protective, respectful. You don’t see much of that these days,” said Samantha.

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“C’mon, let’s get done here, and we can go back and drink Blackberry vodka ‘til we pass out,” said Samantha, smiling.

“Oh man, that sounds so good.”

CHAPTER NINE

There were just two more check-ups left to do when the ambulance driver burst through the curtains of the cubicle.

“Good job I didn’t have somebody in here, isn’t it?” said Lucy.

“I checked,” said the driver. “We need to go. We’ve got a call.”

Lucy and Samantha looked at one another and suddenly the smile that had been building behind their eyes in anticipation of the evening ahead vanished. They both knew what ‘a call’ meant.

“Of course we do,” said Lucy.

“I’ll be out front,” said the driver. “I’ve already sorted the other appointments out. There are rations being distributed in Kippax tomorrow. It was Doctor Ramirez and Olivia due there, but it’s going to be us now. They’re heading up there too, so you can give them their medicals then.” He disappeared back through the curtains.

“Shoot!” said Lucy.

“Our girls night in is looking less and less like it’s going to happen, sweetie.”

“C’mon,” said Samantha, helping Lucy pack the equipment away. “We could still be back at the base in time for dinner. We can have a few. It’s not like we’re driving or anything.”

Suddenly time stopped for Lucy. Samantha carried on talking, but Lucy didn’t hear a word. She got up and headed out of the cubicle. “I just need the bathroom,” she said, leaving Samantha to finish gathering all the equipment together.

Lucy almost stumbled into the small toilet, steadying herself on the wash basin in front of the mirror. She looked at the woman facing her and pulled out the small plastic bottle from her pocket. She stared at it a while, then flicked the top open and tapped out one of the small white tablets into her palm, before choking it back.

Everything had become a trigger. Any hint, any clue, any memory. She did not know if telling people made it worse or better. For the time being, she chose to tell no one about her Charlie, and she would deal with the triggers herself. Maybe soon, maybe not. She was getting closer to Samantha, she felt she could trust her and maybe her friend could help her; help her stop falling to pieces when an innocent reference about drinking and driving was made. “Oh Charlie,” she whispered looking into the mirror.

Then she saw her, through the glass. It wasn’t a grubby, white tiled toilet any longer. It was a beautiful garden. Charlie was sitting on the lawn with a look of pure elation on her face as she watched a ladybug crawl over her hand. Lucy was stepping onto the well-tended grass, bringing ice cold lemonade on a tray. She put it down on the black wrought iron garden table and headed over to where Charlie was sitting. The little girl put a finger up to her mouth, signaling for her mum to be quiet. Lucy knelt down beside her and the two of them watched as the red and black spotted insect paused, as if it knew it was being regarded.

“It’s pretty,” whispered Lucy.

“I’m calling her, Lady. Can I keep her mommy?” whispered Charlie.

“You can’t keep her, honey,” said Lucy.

“Why?” asked Charlie, confusion taking over the look of happiness that had been on her face.

“Because as happy as you and I are sitting here now, that’s how happy Lady is. But if you take her and put her in a jar, it will be like putting her in prison. It would be like someone locking you up in a room and never letting you out. But out here, we can all be happy. We can all enjoy life and each other. We can all enjoy what mother nature gifted us with.”

“I don’t want to put her in prison. I just want her to be my friend,” said Charlie, twisting her hand as the little creature walked around it.

“She is your friend, honey. This is her way of saying ‘hi, pleased to meet you’. I bet you a barrel of donuts she’ll keep coming back to say hi. We won’t always see her. Sometimes she’ll just sit on a flower and watch as you play,” said Lucy.

The confusion and anxiety disappeared from Charlie’s face, and her expression was filled with happiness again. There was a small breeze and the ladybird stopped and tensed, and when the breeze stopped it flapped its wings and launched into the sweet summer air. Charlie and Lucy watched it fly, both of them marveled at the simple beauty and purity as it propelled its black body with such delicate wings.

When it had disappeared from view, Charlie flung her arms around Lucy. “I love you mommy, so, so much.”

“I love you too, sweetie.”

“So if I can’t have a ladybug, can I have a puppy?”

Lucy burst out laughing. “Oh Charlie, you are one of a kind.”

“Can I mommy? Can I? Can I? Can I?”

“Listen, things are a bit hectic at work at the moment, but in the Fall it should get a bit calmer. I’m not saying yes, but I’m not saying no. We’ll look at it then, okay?”

Almost as if not hearing her, Charlie continued. “I’ll walk him and I’ll brush him and I’ll feed him and we can call him Marley, like in the film, and he can sleep on my bed so we won’t need to buy one for him and he will protect us,” she said living out a lifetime in a moment in her little head.

“I said, we’ll see,” they both looked at each other and then giggled.

Charlie got up and ran towards the table with the lemonade on. She used both her small hands to pick up the jug from the tray and began to pour. “Do you want some mommy?”

“Mommy.”

“Mommy.”

“Mommy.”

“Lucy.”

“Lucy.”

“Lucy,” this time the call came with a fierce rapping on the door as Samantha became increasingly concerned.

Lucy looked in the mirror. The summer garden had been replaced by the dirty white tiles of the bathroom. Lucy was back to being a childless mother. Alone in the world but for casual acquaintances and memories. “I’m okay,” she called.

“You sure? You didn’t answer,” replied Samantha.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, unlocking the bathroom door and walking past the nurse, and back out into the bustling distribution centre. “Just a bit queasy. Must have been something I ate.”

Samantha followed her.  “We’re all packed up and ready to go. It’s over at Cross End Flats, near that big industrial estate.” Lucy shrugged her shoulders. She just went wherever the ambulance took her.

The two women climbed into the back of the ambulance and saw two men there. They were just putting on the hazmat outfits.

“Eh up!” one of them said. “Doctor Blair?” he got up with the yellow trousers just half way up his legs. “I’m Les, this is Pete.” He extended his hand.

Lucy shook it, as did Samantha. “Call me Lucy, this is Samantha.”

The other man got up and shook both their hands too. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

“You’re not the guys we had this morning,” said Lucy.

“No. Nobody can find them. Guess they’ve done a runner somewhere,” said Les, and let out a small chuckle.

“You don’t seem like conscripts,” said Lucy.

Les smiled widely. “Well, we are and we aren’t. We were both in the army in the dim distant past, but for a few years, I’ve been a brickie and Pete’s been a welder. When the economy tanked, we both got laid off, and hey, presto, we got our bloody call up papers. Talk about shite luck.” The four of them laughed. The two men finished putting their suits on and the ambulance set off.

CHAPTER TEN

The ambulance made good time once it was outside of the radius of the distribution centre. The roads were clear apart from the odd police or military vehicle. The traffic light system had been shut down. There were so few vehicles on the road that they just stopped at junctions now, but usually moved on after a couple of seconds, unencumbered by the risk of hitting other traffic.

The ambulance slowed and took a corner before continuing. “I’m guessing you’ve heard the rumours we’ve heard,” said Samantha leaning forward and looking towards Les and Pete. The two men glanced at one another.

“What have you heard?” asked Les.

“About the likes of Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, and so on,” she said.

“What about them?”

“That they’ve had outbreaks.”

“I’d heard that last week. This week I’ve heard more than a dozen towns and cities have had outbreaks. I’ve heard armed gangs have been taking over some places. I’ve heard all sorts. Who knows? All we can do is control what we can control. Let the rest of the chips fall where they may.”

“But what do you think?” asked Lucy, going to sit on the Gurney so she could see the other three without twisting her head around.

“I think...I think things have changed in the last week or so. The briefings have been more guarded. I think we’re getting less information through from the powers that be, and I think that can only be for one reason,” said Les, staring Lucy straight in the eyes.

“Which is?” she replied.

“When things were going well, we were hearing about everything. We were being told how we had done what no other country had managed to do. We had been told about the hundreds of thousands of tons of wheat and hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil had been secured in this deal or that deal. We were being told about all the coal that was being mined again, about the massive amounts of food that was being produced now there was zero unemployment due to the conscription. But gradually, we heard less and less, and since last week, pretty much all that’s coming through are orders and directives. The secondary flow of information about how the rest of the country is doing has dried up. I think things are...bad,” he said, finally lowering his gaze.

Lucy looked across towards Samantha. It was just a matter of time now.

“Fuck!” shouted the driver as he slammed on the brakes, throwing the passengers in the back of the ambulance forward. Lucy's heart started racing.

The soldier in the passenger seat picked up the radio. “Control this is Mobile Three, over.”

“Mobile Three, this is control, pass message, over,” said the female dispatcher’s voice.

“Control, we have arrived at Cross End Flats. There is a large gathering of civilians breaking curfew. Request immediate assistance, over.”

“Mobile Three, I have your location. We’re dispatching backup now, over and out.”

He placed the radio handset back in its cradle and just watched. The two soldiers along with Lucy and Samantha had crowded round the gap between the cab and the rear of the ambulance, just staring towards the crowd who seemed to be in a state of perpetual rioting, pushing against windows and doors of the ground floor flats.

“What the bloody ‘ell’s going on?” said Pete.

“Move forward a bit,” said Les, “We can’t see bugger all back here.”

“Fuck off!” said the driver. “You think I’m going to go near an angry crowd with no backup?”

Les shook his head and unzipped his hazmat suit enough to reach his belt. He pulled out a monocular and focussed it on the crowd.

“Oh Shiiittt!” he said.

“What? What is it?” asked Lucy.

“They’re not civvies. They’re fucking RAMs,” he said.

The driver shot round to look at him, taking his foot of the clutch. The ambulance had still been in third gear and stalled immediately, with a heavy judder.

“Oh fuck!” he said, turning the key back then forward to get it restarted. It coughed loudly causing a number of the RAMs at the back of the crowd to turn, then more, then the rest. They started charging towards the ambulance.

The passenger grabbed the radio handset out of the cradle again as the engine continued to splutter.

“You’re going to flood it y’daft twat,” said Les.

“Control this is Mobile Three, RAMs. We’re under attack from RAMs. Dozens of them. Send help!”

“Mobile Three, this is control, repeat message, over.”

“There are fucking RAMs everywhere, they’re coming for us.” It was the first time Lucy had taken a proper look at the driver’s mate. He was young, maybe nineteen or twenty, but right now he looked like a frightened schoolboy who was about to burst out crying. “Please. Please send help!”

The engine continued to cough, and Les and Pete un-holstered their sidearms, as the charging herd of vicious beasts closed in on them.

Instinctively, Samantha grabbed Lucy’s hand. If they were going to die, at least she wanted to die with a friend. “It’s okay, sweetie,” said Lucy, her mothering instinct, still present. “We’ll be fine.”

“Listen,” said Les. “This isn’t a civvy ambulance. The bloody thing’s armoured. It might be a few years old, but it’ll have got through worse crowds than this before, so don’t you girls worry. We’ll have backup here soon.”

The engine finally rumbled to life, and all six of them let out audible breaths of relief.

“Thank God,” said Samantha.

“Alright soft lad,” said Les. “Just take it easy, we don’t want to stall the bugger again do we?”

The driver crunched the stiff gear stick into reverse and eased his foot down on the accelerator, while at the same time releasing it from the clutch. The ambulance began to move as the first two RAMs smashed into the front of it, followed by another then another. As the ambulance picked up speed, a gap formed between it and the herd, then a bigger gap.

“Hold on,” said the driver as he turned the wheel hard, the ambulance reversed into a sharp ark. He banged his foot down on the brake and clutch as the ambulance came to a standstill at a right angle to the curb.

The RAMs seemed to speed up as their focus now stood still, mere metres away. The driver took a breath before pushing the gear stick into first, turning the wheel right, putting it into a full lock; and as the front wheels began to turn again the RAMs were suddenly in the rearview mirrors. The ambulance accelerated and with each passing second, the panic diminished a little more. Other than the driver, all eyes were fixed on the wing mirrors, as the charging figures got smaller and smaller.

The driver spun the wheel and the ambulance took a hard right, screeching the wheels and leaning to within a few inches of toppling. Everyone’s hearts leapt to their throats as the vehicle negotiated the tight corner, but when they were back onto straight road, they breathed easy again. Within a few seconds, they saw four army trucks speeding in the opposite direction, into harm’s way.

“Oh sweet Jesus, I hope they know what they’re heading into,” said Lucy.

“Don’t worry love, they’ve got a better idea than most,” said Les.

“Oh shit! Hold on!” shouted the driver as the ambulance swerved drastically to avoid more creatures appearing from one of the side streets, and leaping towards the moving vehicle.

“Holy fuck, what’ going on?” asked the soldier in the passenger seat.

More RAMs stormed out of a street on the opposite side of the road, and leapt at the ambulance, battering their bodies against the armoured sidings. Samantha let out a small scream as a gory mass exploded onto the left-hand side of the windscreen where one of the creature’s head met the toughened glass.

“Okay, where now?” asked the driver.

“What do you mean, where now?” replied Les. “The backup’s arrived, we go and help them.”

“Fuck that shit,” said the driver.

“Oy!” said Les, “Those are our people back there.

“Yeah, and four more guns aren’t gonna make a difference are they?” replied the driver.

“Four guns can make all the bloody difference, y’spineless little twat,” replied Les.

Another four RAMs rushed from a side street to hammer their bodies against the vehicle and get scattered over the road.

“Don’t you see? Don’t you fucking see? This is it. It’s hit us! This is the fucking end. It’s the end of the end!” said the driver.

“You need to calm the fuck down, son,” said Les.

“Calm down? Why the fuck should I calm down?” asked the driver as another creature emerged, and flung itself against the ambulance.

“Listen to me son. Conscripts or not, we’re all in this together. We sink or swim together, we live or die together. It’s going to be panic and poor judgement that kill us, not these bloody things,” said Les.

The driver turned back to look at the seasoned soldier with tears in his eyes. “I just want to see them,” he said.

“What are you talking about? See who?” asked Les.

“My family. I just want to see them one last time,” he replied, and the tears began to fall properly.

Les rubbed his hand over his face and took a deep breath. “Listen to me son. The only way we’re going to get out of this mess is by working together. Now, for Christ’s sake, keep your eyes on the road.”

Shots began to ring out from behind them as the battle began. The six of them could only imagine the carnage that would ensue. Lucy turned round to see Samantha had taken a seat on the gurney. Her hands were clenched together in her lap and her lips were moving. Lucy went to sit with her and placed her right hand gently over hers. Despite the noise of the engine and the intermittent conversation between the four men, she could hear Samantha mumbling the Lord’s prayer.

When she had finished, Lucy squeezed her. “We’re not there yet, sweetie,” she said. Samantha didn’t say anything, she just looked up at her with sad eyes. There was a thud as another creature flung itself at the side of the vehicle. Samantha flinched.

“They’re fucking everywhere,” screamed the driver hysterically.

“Calm down,” said Les. “Our lads will get this mopped up in no time,” and on cue, two more army trucks passed them going in the opposite direction.

The driver continued to accelerate, and the streets felt less dangerous with each metre of road that passed beneath them. There was a recreational ground to the left with not a soul in it. The driver turned into the car park and pulled on the handbrake. They had a good three-hundred and sixty degree line of site, just in case trouble headed in their direction.

“Right,” said Les. “Let’s just get our bearings. Come on, let’s get some air for a minute.” He opened the back door of the ambulance and climbed out, being sure to scan the area for danger before beckoning the rest of the team out of the ambulance.

They could hear the odd shot and explosion in the distance when the breeze caught it right, but for the time being, their heartbeats returned to something a little more normal.

The driver started to roll a cigarette, but his hands were still shaking, and it was his friend who finished rolling both cigarettes for them.

Lucy, Samantha, Les and Pete stood at the back of the ambulance. They were taking in deep breaths of fresh air, grateful to be out of the confines of the vehicle. They sipped water from their canteens.

“So what’s the plan?” asked Lucy, looking towards Les.

“We just go where we’re told,” he said. “We’ll get our breath back and radio in that we’re awaiting fresh orders. Hopefully we’ll be sent somewhere that doesn’t look like it’s the set of a bloody horror movie.”

“Yeah, here’s hoping,” said Lucy raising her canteen and taking another drink.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

They gave themselves a good fifteen minutes before climbing back into the ambulance. Les walked to the front and asked the driver to pass him the radio handset. As he did, it burst into life.

“Control, this is Mobile Nine, over,” announced the shaky voice.

“Mobile Nine, this is control, pass message, over.”

“Control...Control. We’re on the outskirts of Headingley, heading up from Burley. There are...RAMs. Control, there are RAMs. Multiple sightings. Request immediate assistance. Repeat, request immediate assistance, over.”

“Mobile Nine, this is Control. Assistance is being dispatched, over and out.”

Les looked at the handset. “Holy shit!” he said.

“See, see, I fucking told you,” said the driver. “This is it. It’s all turned to shit.”

“Give it a rest,” replied Les. “Do you know how many soldiers we’ve got stationed here? You think we can’t handle multiple combat zones?”

“Listen to yourself,” said the driver. “Multiple combat zones? We’re not talking about a bunch of bloody rag heads in the desert now, we’re talking about…RAMs. These things are relentless. For so long we kept them out, but the second there was an outbreak, that was it. It was just a matter of time. And the time has come. This is it.”

“I’ll say it again, calm the fuck down,” said Les, as he brought the handset up to his mouth, and cleared his throat.

Before he got chance to hit the speak button, there was another broadcast.

“Hello? Hello? Is there anybody there?”

“Identify yourself, over, came the curt response from the dispatcher.”

“I’m in an ambulance. It was horrible. They’re all dead,” said the female voice as she began to cry.

Les turned to look at Lucy, Samantha and Pete.

“Where are you? Over?” asked the controller.

“Beeston, near the Ring Road. Topworth Gardens,” came the reply.

“I have a fix on your location, we’re sending assistance now. Stay in the ambulance until they arrive, over and out.”

“No. Don’t go. Please don’t go,” said the woman, sobbing. “I’m scared. I don’t want to die. Not like this.”

“Caller, this channel is for military traffic. It’s essential it is not congested. Stay in the ambulance. Stay out of sight, and help will be there soon. Over and out,” said the controller, more firmly this time. The broadcast was followed by a high-pitched screech of electronic interference before going silent.

Lucy plunged her face into her hands. “This really is it,” she mumbled. She made sure her voice was not loud enough for the driver or his mate to hear, but she knew it was truth.

When he was sure his broadcast was not going to be interrupted, he pressed the speak button. “Control, this is Mobile Three, over.” He released the speak button and waited for a response. When none came, he pressed the button again. “Control, this is Mobile Three, over.” He released the speak button and was greeted with silence once more.

“That’s it. Fucking Control’s gone down now. That’s it,” said the driver.

“Will you shut the fuck up,” said Les, clenching his fist. “There could be a dozen different reasons we’re not getting a response. “Control, this is Mobile Three, are you receiving us, over?” Once again, there was no reply. “Right,” said Les, pulling a small card out from his pocket. “We need to see where else they’re distributing rations. There’ll be soldiers wherever there’s food.” He scanned the card. “Right, Moortown. You know how to get there soft lad?” he asked the driver.

“Course I do,” he replied in a shaky voice, and started the engine.

The ambulance began to move, and Les and Pete sat down opposite Lucy and Samantha who were still on the gurney.

“So, how screwed are we?” asked Lucy, quietly.

“On a scale of one to ten, we’re about two hundred.”

“That’s reassuring, thanks,” said Samantha.

“So what do we do?” asked Lucy.

“First off, we head to Moortown, it’s the nearest place to us where there’ll be a concentration of troops”

“What then?” asked Lucy.

“Then we await orders. I can’t even get my head around how you unfuck a mess like this,” he replied.

The ambulance sped along the streets, occasionally passing another military or police vehicle, but no more RAMs. The tension which had been palpable diminished with each metre the vehicle put between them and the vicious herd of creatures they had encountered.

“I suppose we’ll be parting company when we reach the distribution centre,” said Lucy.

“Aye, probably,” replied Les. “Don't worry, I’ll make sure we map a clear path for you guys to get back to your base, before we go our separate ways."

“I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure,” said Lucy, “but I really can’t. But...it was good to meet the two of you. You’re good people.”

“Yeah, it was nice meeting the pair of you too. Who knows, we might get assigned to your base,” said Les.

“That would be good. We could do with men like you there,” replied Lucy, glancing sideways in the direction of the driver and passenger, and the four of them smiled. They knew the chances of ever seeing each other again were slim, but it was nice to dream. After the events of the afternoon, who knew what the hell was going to happen?

“Fuck!” shouted the driver as something hit the bonnet. The ambulance juddered as it went over a bump. Another bang sounded as something else hit the side of the vehicle. “Shit! This is bad, he shouted into the back. They’re everywhere.”

Les rushed to the front and saw RAMs storming out of side streets, charging towards the ambulance, the noise of the engine alerting them to possible prey. “Put your foot down, then at the junction turn left. About two hundred yards, then turn right, it’s less built up around there.”

The driver shifted into fourth gear and the engine sang loudly as the revs increased and they smashed a path through the throng of attacking creatures. Audible gasps came from the other five, as the driver took the turn Les had mentioned too hard and the ambulance tilted as it went around the corner.

Time stood still, and Samantha and Lucy dug their fingernails into the gurney. That few seconds lasted an eternity. Would it or wouldn’t it topple over? A screech, a thud and a bounce later, the ambulance had righted itself and everyone let out a breath. The creatures were still rushing out of the side streets and gardens, but their numbers diminished as the ambulance sped towards a less populated neighbourhood. The driver changed down gears and slowed before taking the next corner, but then revved the engine again as he put as much distance as possible between them and the RAMs.

They left the houses behind and proceeded along a road that cut through a large area of green park land. On either side, they saw the odd creature in the distance, but then nothing. Houses came into view ahead and they tensed in anticipation of another RAM attack, but none came.

“We’re not far from the centre,” said Les.

“I know, I can see where I am now,” replied the driver.

Les fist bumped the driver’s shoulder. “Nice driving.”

The driver didn’t respond, he just wiped the sweat from his forehead and kept his eyes on the road ahead, searching for any sign of danger.

“How far to go?” asked Lucy.

“About two minutes,” replied Les.

“Thank God,” replied Samantha. “I don’t know how much more of this I could have taken.”

The ambulance began to slow down and Lucy noticed Les as he subconsciously moved his hand over the butt of his sidearm. What was he thinking?

“Oh fuck! Fuck! Fuck! No!” said the driver.

Les let out a deep breath. “What’s wrong now?” he asked walking to the front of the ambulance. “Fuck!” he repeated as he looked back towards the others.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Lucy, Samantha and Pete crowded around the opening to get a look for themselves. The area outside the distribution depot looked like a war zone. There were bodies everywhere, Soldiers, civilians, RAMs. There was no sign of movement as the ambulance drove up to the entrance of what had once been a large electrical retailer, but was now a rations distribution centre once a week. The driver pulled on the handbrake and looked at each of his passengers hoping one of them would say something, anything that made sense of the situation.

Lucy was the first to move, she got out of the ambulance and surveyed the carnage. It was eerie, such a gruesome landscape and no sound but that of a single engine. She heard the others gather behind her but she could not tear her eyes away from all the bodies. She noticed some of the civilians had been armed.

“What the hell happened here?” she asked out loud.

“It’s obvious isn’t it,” said the driver. “The RAMs attacked and all bloody hell broke loose.”

“I don’t think it’s that straightforward. A lot of these civilians died from gunshot wounds by the look of it,” she said walking across to one of the bodies and crouching down to take a look.

“They’ll have got caught in the crossfire won’t they,” replied the driver.

“And why the hell are some of them armed?” she asked.

“Erm, well…”

Les went across to join Lucy. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking there is more to this than just an attack by RAMs,” she said, standing up and walking past the rest of them to head into the rations centre. Inside, there was still enough daylight to see, but she immediately found it odd that there were no lights, and there was no generator sound like there was in every single rations depot she had ever walked into. There were many more bodies strewn all over the floor. Les, Samantha, and Pete joined her as she walked further into the former electrical store. Les and Pete pulled out there Glock 17s, just in case.

The shelving which housed the rations was empty. “This place was raided,” said Les.

“C’mon, we should get back on the road,” said Lucy, suddenly beginning to get an uneasy feeling.

“Yeah,” said Les. “You’re not wrong.” The four of them headed back outside.

The driver and his mate came to a stop, looking around for any sign of movement. “Can we get the hell out of here now? asked the driver.

“Yep, let’s get going. We’ll head over to Wetherby,” said Les. The driver nodded and climbed into the ambulance.

“What’s in Wetherby?” asked Lucy.

“The army set up a huge camp at the racecourse, we’re guaranteed to find friendly faces there,” replied Les.

“I think the days of guarantees are gone,” replied Lucy, “but it’s as good a place to try as any,” she said as they all climbed into the ambulance.

The driver started the engine and pulled away. They just started to gain momentum, when he jammed on the brakes. Three cars screeched through the car park entrance and blocked their way.

“Shit. What do we do?” asked the driver.

“Right,” said Les, “Fuck this shit. Both of you, get out, raise your weapons, leave the talking to me,” said Les to the driver and passenger.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” asked Lucy as Les passed her to leave the ambulance. “Whoever did this,” he said nodding towards the nightmarish scene in the car park, “will be long gone. It was an organised gang and a well-planned operation. They wouldn’t stick around here. Whoever this lot is, they’ve just messed with the wrong fucking person,” he said before jumping down from the ambulance. Pete followed him and slammed the rear doors. They each headed up one side of the ambulance, Pete joining the passenger, Les joining the driver. All four of them raised their weapons towards the idling vehicles.

Lucy and Samantha rushed to the front of the ambulance and watched as the four soldiers advanced. Les and Pete were still in their hazmat outfits, the shiny yellow PVC glinting in the sun. “I really don’t like this,” said Lucy.

“You’ve got ten seconds to get these cars the fuck out of here, or we’re going to open fire. I jest you not. Now fucking move. Nine! Eight! Seven! Six!” shouted Les.

“He definitely sounds the part,” said Lucy.

“Five! Four…”

An explosion of red, followed by another, then another, then another, as first Les, then the driver, then Pete, then the passenger collapsed to the floor.

Samantha screamed and immediately began to cry.

“Oh fuck, no!” said Lucy.

The car doors opened and eight men got out, all of them holding weapons and raising them as they walked towards the ambulance.

Lucy leapt into the driver’s seat and crunched the gear into reverse. She put her foot down hard on the accelerator and brought the other up on the clutch making the ambulance shoot backwards and taking the advancing men by surprise. In a moment of indecision, they raised their weapons ready to fire, then decided against it, instead running back to their vehicles. A shot pinged off the armoured bonnet of the ambulance. “They’ve got snipers,” she said, heaving the steering wheel round hard and pulling the ambulance to a ninety-degree angle from where it had been facing the three cars.

The entire compound was surrounded by a wire mesh fence. Lucy looked to her left and saw the men still had not reached their vehicles. Samantha, climbed into the passenger seat, tears still flooding from her eyes. “Screw it,” said Lucy, “Hold on tight,” she said and accelerated hard across the car park, running over the odd body, but losing no speed.

“Oh my God!” cried Samantha as she put on her seatbelt.

Lucy realised she hadn’t put hers on, and reached across for it with her left hand, passing the buckle to Samantha to click into place for her while she negotiated another gear change. Sniper bullets pinged around them as they sped through the car park.

“Where are they?” asked Lucy.

Samantha turned to look. “They’re just setting off,” she said, bringing her eyes back round to the front to see when she needed to brace herself for impact.

Lucy changed gears again and put her accelerator to the floor. “Okay! Hold on,” she shouted and the ambulance crunched into the taut fence. They both jerked forward with the impact and for a split second thought that the fence would not give, but it burst open with an ear shattering metallic screech. A huge flap of mesh shot to the side, slapping against the rest of the fence. Another piece caught around the bumper and dragged it from the front of the ambulance. It they had been going any slower, they would not have made it, but the momentum took them through. They landed with a heavy shake onto the embankment, and Lucy’s muscles flexed hard as she tried to keep the steering wheel straight. They reached the bottom of the incline with another heavy judder, and Lucy moved down through the gears quickly to make sure they could climb the embankment on the other side of the gulley and reach the road without stalling.

Samantha looked in the rearview mirror. “There’s nobody following us,” she said.

“They will,” grunted Lucy as the ambulance slowly climbed the hill. It reached level ground as it hit the pavement, and there was one more creaky judder as they dropped from the curb and onto the road.

“I can see one of them,” said Samantha. “They’re a fair way off.”

“They’d have had to go the long way around,” replied Lucy, accelerating again. Those cars would have been shaken to pieces going down that hill. She moved into fourth gear and put her foot as far down as it would go.

Samantha looked in the rearview mirror. “I don’t believe it,” she said, “it looks like it’s turning around.”

“Risk probably not worth the rewards,” said Lucy.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think they’d finished when we arrived there. I think we’d disturbed them,” said Lucy.

“But all the food had gone,” replied Samantha.

“Yeah, but didn’t it seem strange to you that some of the dead soldiers were armed, and some weren’t?” I think they’d come back to gather the rest of the arms, ammo, whatever they could get their hands on. They probably realised there is still an awful lot of valuable stuff there, and the risk of following an ambulance that might be empty of supplies for all they know isn’t worth it when they have a whole pile of stuff in their grasp.”

“I didn’t think of it like that,” said Samantha.

“Would you chase us in a RAM infested city if you didn’t need to?” asked Lucy.

“Jesus no,” replied Samantha.

“Exactly.”

The ambulance slowed as it reached a roundabout. “We need to figure out where we’re going,” said Samantha.

“You know this town better than me, sweetie,” replied Lucy.

“Okay, we need to think. It’s not a good idea for us to rush into something right now. I know this area. Turn right up ahead,” said Samantha.

Lucy slowed and turned onto a shaded road, lined on either side by trees. “Where am I going?”

“Just keep on for a while, I’ll tell you where to pull in,” replied Samantha. The ambulance carried on for a minute. “Okay, and here, just pull in to the side.”

Lucy did as she was asked. “What is this place?”

“This actually used to be a bus stop,” replied Samantha. “It’s where you used to come and park up with your boyfriend if you wanted a bit of privacy. The last bus stopped here at about eight at night,” said Samantha, and for the first time in a long time, they both let out a small laugh. “The nearest house is about half a mile away. It’s a posh area, not many houses around at all. It should give us a little bit of a breather while we decide what we’re doing next.

Lucy sat for a moment, she checked the mirrors, she looked around. It really was a quiet stretch of road. There was a good line of sight in both directions, she supposed that was important for horny teenagers. She smiled to herself briefly before picking up the radio handset.

“Control, this is Mobile Three, do you read me? Over.” There was no response. “Control, this is Mobile Three. Are you reading me? Over.” Lucy waited for a few more seconds and was greeted with silence. She brought the handset back up to her mouth. “Is there anybody on this channel? Can anyone hear me? Please! Please. Is there anybody out there?” She stared at the handset, but no reply came. Lucy turned off the engine and got out. She walked up to the dry-stone wall bordering the farmer’s field. “I can’t believe I was so stupid,” she said, as Samantha came to join her.

“What do you mean?” asked Samantha.

“Back at the rations centre. Guns and ammo everywhere, and I didn’t think to pick anything up,” she replied.

“I’m a nurse, you’re a doctor, we had four armed men with us. Why would you think you needed a weapon?” said Samantha.

“No use crying over spilt milk, I suppose,” she said to herself more than Samantha.

“So, what should we do?” asked Samantha.

“Les seemed to think Wetherby was our best option,” said Lucy.

“Wetherby means going back in the direction we’ve just come from, and I’m not as convinced as he was that it was a safe place to head,” replied Samantha.

“So where then?” asked Lucy.

“I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers,” said Samantha.

They stood in silence, leaning on the wall, watching as the sun got lower and lower in the sky. The early evening air cooled them down, and they both got lost in their thoughts.

Lucy awoke from her trance with a shiver. “It’s getting cold, I’m going to sit back in the ambulance,” she said.

“Yeah,” replied Samantha, “I’m going to join you.”

They sat in the front seats of the ambulance with their arms folded, trying to fend off the chill of the evening. The sun eventually disappeared, and still they had no plan as to what to do, or where to go. For the time being, they were safe on their little strip of Lover’s Lane, but for how long? How long would it be before raiders happened by? Or a group of RAMs? The dim light gave way to darkness. There were no street lights and as they looked across towards the more heavily populated areas of the city, they saw the first green flares being fired into the sky.

When the government had originally drawn up the long list of measures to protect those in the quarantine zones, one of the things they had done was issued survival packs. In them was an emergency flare, which, as advertised, was strictly to be used in the event of an emergency.

“I think we’ll see a lot more of them before this night’s out,” said Lucy.

“I’ve got it!” said Samantha excitedly.

“Got what?” replied Lucy.

“I know where we should go.”

“Where?”

“We should head to Mike’s house,” said Samantha.

“You are joking me,” replied Lucy. “Samantha, they could be in more trouble than us right now. We’re just as well sticking a pin in a map and heading there.”

“You don’t know Mike like I do, Lucy. Trust me. That’s where we should go.”

Lucy suddenly got a sinking feeling. The survival plan was based around a schoolgirl crush on a jock with serious anger management issues. She sat there for a moment, then turned the keys. She waited for the engine warning light to go off then turned the key further making the engine start. “What the hell,” she said, “stay here, head there, the result’s going to be the same in the end.” She engaged first gear and the ambulance slowly moved away.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They had only been travelling a few minutes before they saw their first RAMs. “Shit,” said Lucy. We should really have made this journey while it was still daylight. We haven’t just got the sound of the engine now, there’re the lights as well. This was a really shitty idea.”

“We need to get onto the ring road,” said Samantha.

“And how do we do that?” asked Lucy.

“We need to go back that way,” she said, gesturing towards the direction they had just come from.

“What the hell Samantha? Why did you have me heading in this direction?” snapped Lucy as the first RAMs battered against the side of the ambulance.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking. I thought we’d be okay this way,” she said as another RAM smashed against the armoured body of the vehicle.

“Jesus,” said Lucy as she spun the wheel, thrust the gear stick into position and reversed into the curb, making the vehicle shudder and stall.

“Arrrggghhh!” screamed Samantha as two creatures smashed against her door, threatening to shatter the strengthened glass. “Lucy, hurry!” she yelled as another, then another reached them and started pounding against the bonnet, trying to claw their way in. “Lucy!” she screamed again and began to start crying. It was dark, but they could see more fast approaching silhouettes as the headlights cast a radius of ghoulish light.

“Shut up, Samantha!” yelled Lucy, as she turned the key again. The engine coughed then roared as Lucy pressed hard on the accelerator. A line of deathly horror masks gave her a shadowy greeting as she looked up. More and more of them appeared as the ambulance became surrounded. Thudding fists, heads and bodies, guttural growls that grumbled through the thick glass, all filled the ambulance with a spine-tingling dirge that made Lucy want to take all her oxycodone tablets at once. She put her left foot down on the clutch, engaged first gear, put her right on the accelerator and slowly, the wheels began to turn. The movement of the heavy vehicle meant nothing to the vicious creatures attempting to gain entry. They continued to hit, body-check and claw until the ambulance had gained enough speed to shake off the last of them.

The odd RAM ran out from a garden or side street as the ambulance sped along, but there was nothing like the massing they had just experienced. Samantha dabbed away her tears with her cuff. “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing.

“No, I’m sorry,” replied Lucy. “This is a shitty nightmare, we’re both stressed. I really hope you’re right about this.”

“About what?” asked Samantha.

“About this journey. Because we’re heading straight into Hell.”

“Well, I suppose we’ll find out soon, won’t we?” she replied.

Lucy looked across at her. “Wait a minute, a little while back, this guy was the second coming.”

“I don’t know anything anymore.”

Lucy continued until they were back at the bus stop where they had parked earlier. She pulled on the handbrake and turned towards Samantha. “Listen. Before we head back into the city, I need to know it’s going to be worth it. Take a breath Samantha, and tell me that the idea of heading to Mike’s hinged on more than him having a cute ass.” Samantha opened the door and climbed out of the ambulance. “Hey, where are you going?” asked Lucy, unbuckling her seatbelt and following her.

The young nurse placed her hands on the cold stone of the wall and watched as a green firework display began to light up the sky more with each moment that passed. “Oh my God,” she said distantly.

This was really it, thought Lucy.

Lucy came to join her, searching the shadows. “This is a really dumb idea, sweetie, we should head back into the ambulance.”

Samantha carried on speaking, almost as if Lucy wasn’t there. “Mike is all about honour. He always was. Family and honour. My sister was always popular with guys, she’s had a few boyfriends, nothing serious, but when she had to break up with Mike, she was devastated. Nobody had ever had that effect on her. He’s special. If we go to him for help, he won’t let us down,” she said, and then turned towards Lucy. “When I saw him yesterday, he was the same man he’d always been.

“I hope you’re right, because this is a big gamble we’re taking,” replied Lucy.

“Wherever we head, it’s going to be a gamble,” said Samantha and walked back to the ambulance.

Lucy took one last look towards the flare lit sky, and climbed back into the ambulance. “Okay,” she said, “Let’s do this, buckle up.”

The ambulance moved off once again. They were both grateful for the quiet drive to the ring road, because the green tinge of the sky to their right was a constant reminder of what they were driving into. The traffic lights hadn’t been in operation for weeks, Lucy carefully crossed the carriage way to reach the other side and put her foot down. The ambulance picked up speed passing football fields, schools, a long abandoned service station, but thankfully, no RAMs. Then Lucy caught a flash in the corner of her eye. She looked more carefully in the wing mirror.

Then Samantha saw it too. “Oh no!” she said. “Is it them? Is it the raiders?”

“You’re seeing what I’m seeing, Samantha,” replied Lucy. “There’s no way of telling from this distance.”

The headlights were getting larger, as the distance between the two vehicles narrowed. Lucy put her foot down further on the accelerator, but it made just a marginal difference. This other vehicle was blazing a trail towards them.

“Oh shit! Shit! Shit!” said Samantha, squeezing the ceiling grab handle.

“Why won’t this piece of shit go any faster?” asked Lucy looking at the speedometer. The needle was registering eighty, but still the vehicle behind was getting closer, and fast.

The full beam of the headlights was nearly blinding as the reflection lit up the cab of the ambulance.

“What are we going to do?” asked Samantha.

“Hold tight, if they come up alongside, I’ll ram them. This baby is armour plated, if nothing else we can win a nudging match,” said Lucy.

The souped-up VW Golf pulled alongside them, and Lucy readied herself to smash the ambulance into their side, but then it accelerated even more, and sped past them. Its powerful beams and rear lights disappeared into the distance and Samantha and Lucy were in shock for a moment, but then they both let out a nervous laugh, then a bigger one and an even bigger one. They realised the situation had got to them both.

The occupants in the Golf were probably just like them, desperately trying to find safety when there appeared to be none.

“Okay,” said Samantha, we stay straight on across the next roundabout, and the one after that, then we turn left into Green Flare City.”

Lucy just nodded. The bright green skies told her terror had come to Leeds, and she was about to drive straight into it. She followed Samantha’s instructions and the wide ring road gradually became lined with houses instead of fields. She could see RAMs in the periphery of the headlights’ beams, but they had found prey. Poor unfortunates who had tried to make a run to their cars or a run to their neighbours; not wanting to face the terror alone.

A RAM ran out in front of her, she didn’t have time to react, and the creature’s body flew into the air and crumpled in a pile of broken limbs at the side of the road. She looked in the wing mirror to see it, and smashed into another, then another, she swerved to miss a fourth.

“What are you swerving for?” asked Samantha.

“I don’t want to find out that one of those things has been dragged underneath us when we park up. The fewer we hit, the less the risk,” replied Lucy.

“Okay, turn! Turn!” said Samantha.

Lucy hit the brake and turned left causing the ambulance to tilt a little, but she corrected it quickly. The skies above them were lit up by new flares all the time. She saw one launch from a street parallel to them. Another RAM rushed out, she speeded up again as it leapt, and its face smashed against the side of Samantha’s window.

Samantha let out a scream and started shaking again. “This is too much. This isn’t a good idea. We should get out of here.” Another RAM jumped at the ambulance, this time on Lucy’s side, and Samantha let out another frightened scream.

“Where now?” asked Lucy. When she got no response, she looked across at Samantha. “Hey!” she shouted, “Where now?”

Samantha brought her head up. “It...it’s the next right,” she said.

Lucy barely slowed down to take the turn, smashing into another creature as it ran across the road. “Where?”

“About two hundred metres down this road,” replied Samantha.

Lucy switched the headlights off and took her foot from the accelerator in an attempt to create as little noise or light disturbance as possible. Two more RAMs came at them head on, this time she didn’t try to avoid them. There were cars parked on either side of the road and the last thing she needed was to crash the ambulance. She plowed over them and let out a relieved breath when she saw the two bodies lying still on the road.

“There,” said Samantha, pointing. Lucy pulled up, unbuckled her belt, then Samantha’s before rushing around to the passenger side, opening it up and pulling Samantha out.

“Samantha, you need to pull yourself together, c’mon,” said Lucy, recognising the tall, solid garden gate from the day before. She took the younger woman’s hand and pulled her into the garden, levering the gate closed behind them. The pair of them scanned the green tinged garden, there was no sign of movement.

They walked up to the door. Lucy knocked frantically on the hard wood. After a few seconds, there was no answer, so she knocked even harder, immediately checking her surrounds to see if any creatures had been alerted by the noise.

“Please tell me they’re here, please God,” muttered Samantha.

Lucy banged on the door again, she had nothing to lose. If they didn’t get in, they were going to be dead anyway.

“WHO THE HELL IS IT?” demanded a voice from behind the door.

“Mike… Mike, please let us in, It’s Samantha and Lucy. The door immediately swung open, and the two women stumbled in.

Lucy went to sit on the stairs as the heavy wooden door closed behind them. They’d made it. At the very least, they weren’t going to die alone on the streets. At the most, if this man was all Samantha made out he was, they may just have a slim hope.

THE BEGINNING

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, last, always and forever, I want to thank my wonderful wife, Tina. Without her, all my stories would just be a bunch of strange voices in my head.

I want to thank the members of my fan club. I honestly couldn't wish for a more friendly, loyal, and supportive group of people to share my books with.

Of course... the professionals.  Roma Gray - a wonderful editor and friend. She is great to work with, and makes the impossible possible.  And the amazing Christian Bentulan - he is always great to work with and I am in awe of his abilities.

And finally... A massive thank you to all of you. Even after three books, I still find it difficult to believe that people want to spend their time reading my work. It is as magical as it is humbling. Thank you all.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

I really hope you enjoyed this book and would be very grateful if you took a minute to leave a review on Amazon.

If you would like to stay informed about what I'm doing, including current writing projects, and all the latest news and release information; these are the places to go:

Join the fan club on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/127693634504226/

Like the Christopher Artinian author page

https://www.facebook.com/safehaventrilogy/

Subscribe to the newsletter at

https://christopherartinian.org/

Buy exclusive and signed books and merchandise:

https://www.christopherartinian.com/

Follow me on Twitter

https://twitter.com/Christo71635959

Follow me on Amazon

https://amzn.to/2I1llU6

Other books by Christopher Artinian:

Safe Haven: Rise of the RAMs

Safe Haven: Realm of the Raiders

Safe Haven: Reap of the Righteous

Anthologies featuring short stories by Christopher Artinian

Undead Worlds: A Reanimated Writers Anthology

Featuring: Before Safe Haven: Losing the Battle by Christopher Artinian

Tales from Zombie Road: The Long Haul Anthology

Featuring: Condemned by Christopher Artinian

Treasured Chests: A Zombie Anthology for Breast Cancer Care

Featuring: Last Light by Christopher Artinian

CHRISTOPHER ARTINIAN

Christopher Artinian was born and raised in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Wanting to escape life in a big city and concentrate more on working to live than living to work, he and his family moved to the Outer Hebrides in the north-west of Scotland in 2004.

         He released his debut novel, Safe Haven: Rise of the Rams in February 2017. This was the first instalment of a post-apocalyptic zombie trilogy. Book two, Safe Haven: Realm of the Raiders continues the fast moving and often terrifying story and book three, Reap of the Righteous concludes the first chapter in the gripping saga. With two new Safe Haven stories in production, fans can rest assured that Mike and his family are going to be around for some time to come.

In October 2017, he won the prestigious Zombie Book of the Month Award for Rise of the RAMs. In December 2017 he was also awarded with the prestigious, "Best New Author" prize by the Reanimated Writers group. In addition, Safe Haven won the "Best Series" award in the popular Good Morning Zompoc members poll.

         For fans of the Safe Haven books, a standalone short story featuring one of the main Safe Haven characters was published as part of an anthology (Undead Worlds). Christopher was also featured in the Treasured Chests anthology and another of his stories, "Condemned" was released in the Zombie Road anthology.

Table of Contents

TITLE PAGE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dedication

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

CHRISTOPHER ARTINIAN