And then she saw the light. A faint glow creeping across the road next to where she lay. At first, she thought she was imagining it. But it rapidly grew brighter, and above the roaring of her pulse in her ears, she heard the hum of an engine.
The headlights glinted in the unblinking eyes of the snapper above her, expanding as the vehicle drew closer. For a second, Sammy feared the person driving the vehicle wouldn’t notice her pinned to the ground beneath the snapper and would drive right over what they thought was only an undead writhing in the middle of the road, taking them both out.
But the vehicle ground to a halt as it approached. The snapper briefly lifted it’s head to ogle at the newcomer before continuing it’s struggle against Sammy. Her heart pounded as she strained to keep the infected teeth away from her face, while the vehicle idled meters away as if the driver was deciding whether to help or not.
It felt like almost a minute of struggling on the ground – desperation forcing Sammy to twist her head towards the vehicle and shout for help at the top of her lungs – before she heard the door click open and footsteps rush in her direction.
A solid object hit the snapper’s head with a wooden thwack and the zombie fell off of her. Sammy clambered to her feet, turning to greet her saviour.
The man took another swing at the snapper’s head with his cricket bat to make sure it wouldn’t get back up, then looked at Sammy, eyeing her from head-to-toe in scrutiny.
“Thanks,” Sammy said, huffing in exertion as she made the same quick assessment of him. The man was short and pale-skinned. Asian features. His tousled, black hair along with his narrow frame and height gave a juvenile impression, which wasn’t helped by the mole that looked like a smear of food at the corner of his small mouth.
Whether it was his youthfulness or the fact that he had saved her from the snapper, Sammy felt that he was friendly.
The same couldn’t be said for the other two men who then emerged from the vehicle – a white van with a vaguely familiar logo on the bonnet – to surround her.
One was an older guy with a scowling face, who came up behind her brandishing a hunting knife. The other came and stood between his two pals so that Sammy was penned against the front of the van.
This man was the most intimidating of the three. Not for his physical structure; he was skinny, taller than the guy with the cricket bat, but not as tall as the old bloke. There was strength in the way he carried himself, the kind of strength that comes from survival and the necessity for brutality. But he was far from Eric’s muscled, construction worker physique.
No. What frightened Sammy about this man was the sense she got from his bloodshot eyes and the twitching of his fingers. The sense that he was about to snap at any moment, explode in a frenzy of madness.
“Thank you so much for saving my life,” Sammy said. “Really – thank you. Now if you don’t mind, I need to get going. My friend lives in the village. Her house isn’t far from here.” In truth, she wanted to go back to the bus and pretend none of this had happened, but she didn’t want to lead these strangers to her friends. Hopefully, they wouldn’t ask questions or try to follow her.
The men said nothing. Only traded strange looks with one another and scoped her suspiciously.
“Nice meeting you.” Sammy went to sidle past the old man on her left, but was shoved back in front of the van.
“Where are your friends?” It was the guy with the bloodshot eyes who spoke, his voice low and raspy as if he had strained it from shouting too much.
Friends. How did he know? Sammy stammered, groping for a response.
“I… Friends? What fre—what are you talking about?” The specks of blood on the man’s fleece jacket seemed all the more sinister now. “Who are—” she began, but stopped as her eyes were drawn to the pocket knife clutched in his right hand.
Her Swiss pocket knife.
In a flash of fear, Sammy remembered where she had seen the logo on the van behind her. It was the same one that had adorned the butcher’s van outside Darren’s flat in Braintree; these were Darren’s friends. They must have followed her and the others to Kelvedon.
And they had taken Sammy’s knife from James’ body where she’d left it like a bouquet on his grave.
Sammy’s mouth opened and closed several times, her rattled mind trying to form something coherent to say. But all that came out was, “Shit,” before the cricket bat hit her head and fear gave way to cold, black unconsciousness.
E P I S O D E T H R E E
Leave
1.
Two days earlier
Emma’s OCD had just begun to improve when the dead started walking.
Sitting in her therapist’s office, she sighed and tried to think how best to describe the turn her pervasive thought spirals had taken recently.
“They haven’t gone away. I’m still aware of them happening but… they don’t overwhelm me anymore. When I feel myself starting to spiral, I do the breathing exercises you showed me and it helps me recentre. As long as I have something else to focus on, they pretty much fade away.” Emma raised her eyes to meet her therapist, Mrs Eccleston’s, placid gaze.
“That’s brilliant to hear. I think we made some strong progress last week,” Mrs Eccleston said. She made a few notes in Emma’s record, then regarded the clock on the wall behind her patient. “Well, that’s forty-five minutes so I think we’ll wrap
