The woman froze, glaring over Kingsley’s shoulder at Sammy. He turned to see the crossbow level with the woman’s face, shaking slightly in Sammy's hands.
“Move another muscle, and…” Sammy didn’t finish the threat.
There was no need. The woman's spanner clattered to the floor and, still glaring at them, she said in a small voice wet with spite, “This is our bus.”
3.
“What makes it your bus any more than ours?” Kingsley asked, returning the woman’s angry stare.
“We found it first. It’s ours.” Her eyes were small but intense, like the rest of the features on her round, mousy face.
“I don’t think it works like that anymore,” Sammy said. The woman in the police uniform gave her a quizzical look at that.
Eric picked himself up off the floor, groaning, and snatched the police baton from the woman’s side where she sat lax against one of the bus seats. Kingsley saw the red mark of a bruise beginning to form on the right side of Eric’s face where he had been kicked, spreading from cheekbone to temple. As he bent down to retrieve the spanner, he gave Kingsley a disgruntled smile that said, I’m fine – worry about those two, not me.
“Where did you get those weapons?” the policewoman asked; of course she would be interested in their illegal weaponry.
“The dark web,” Kingsley said, remembering what Darren had told them and not wanting to go into more detail.
The women both looked like they didn’t quite believe him but also had no idea where else you could obtain those sort of weapons.
Kingsley changed the subject. “Look – I don’t know about you, but we really need this bus. Now, there’s more than enough room for all of us, and I would be happy to share. Only it doesn’t seem like you two are quite as willing.”
“We don’t know you,” the mousy one said. “You might try something, try to backstab us.”
“True,” Kingsley admitted, thinking the women might do the same to them. “But why don’t we get to know each other? I’ll start: my name’s Kingsley and my friends here are Sammy and Eric. We’re trying to get to Kelvedon to find Sammy’s parents, and we came here looking for a vehicle. Will you tell me your names?”
The mousy one stayed silent, glaring. But her friend spoke up. “I’m Kara and she’s Rebecca.” Kingsley nodded, and then was surprised when Kara continued. “We’re just trying to get out of Braintree. There are too many infected people in this town. We have no plan other than that. My parents are on a cruise in the Caribbean, and I have no partner or children. Rebecca has family here but… well, she had family here.”
Kingsley looked at Rebecca with sympathy. “You… saw it happen?”
Rebecca shut her eyes. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. And neither am I. I hated them.”
Kingsley didn’t know how to respond to that. Luckily, he didn’t have to say anything because Eric spoke.
“Let’s make this easy for all of us. We still need to pick up some supplies we left in a camping store at the shopping centre before we leave. So here’s what we’ll do: me and Sammy will run back there now and you’ll come with us, Rebecca, while Kingsley stays here with Kara in the bus. It would be stupid to drive further into town when the noise could attract snappers and get us swarmed. And we can’t drive through the shopping centre, anyway.”
“How is that supposed to make things easier for everyone?” Kara asked.
“Because neither you or Kingsley are gonna try to steal the bus when you’re both waiting for us to return.”
“Right. So we’re supposed to just agree that we’re sharing the bus now?”
“I didn’t say that. But, like it or not, we’re the ones with the weapons and we are taking this bus with or without you.”
The crossbow in Sammy’s hands had lowered slightly, no longer aiming at the women’s heads. However, when Eric said those last words she raised the crossbow to head height once again.
“I’m not sure I can agree to share, Eric,” Sammy protested.
Kingsley knew that Eric was trying his best to avoid more senseless violence after yesterday’s chaos, and he voiced his support for him. “It’s the dead we should be worried about. The dead are already trying to kill us. There’s no need to antagonise the living as well.”
But he also knew where Sammy’s hostility came from; even as he spoke, the image of a crossbow bolt sticking out of James’ eye surged through his mind.
4.
Jogging through the shopping centre, Eric, Sammy and Rebecca took care not to attract a trail of snappers that might get them cornered in the plaza as terraced buildings hemmed them in on both sides. They took out every undead that noticed them and snuck past the rest.
Eric swung the chain mace at a snapper that lurched out from behind a souvenir stand before they could pass it. The spiked mace head ripped open the snapper’s neck and shoulder, flinging gore in its wake, the force throwing the undead to the ground and leaving it in a temporary struggle to pick itself back up.
Eric was beginning to get the hang of swinging the chain mace around. He found that it was all about moving in synchronicity with the weapon, leaning into the arcs and not fighting the velocity of the mace head. You had to be certain that you wanted to do damage before swinging it.
It didn’t matter that he hadn’t killed the snapper because they slipped out of sight around a corner just ahead before it could pick itself back up.
Eric could see the sign of the camping store they had slept in last night halfway
