Emma now had no way of getting hold of Leena. Fuck.
The potted plant on the coffee table had been knocked to the floor, shoeprints tracking spilled compost across the cream carpet. Through the kitchen doorway, she could see open cupboards and drawers pulled out, and when she went in there, she saw that there were also knives missing from her set. Her cupboards were considerably barer than she had left them.
She took the last two oaty breakfast bars, unwrapped one and scarfed it where she stood, tucked the other into her jean pocket. Then she filled a glass of water and gulped it down at the sink.
Emma went back into the living room and fell into a chair at her dining table. Started doing the breathing exercises her therapist had shown her.
It wasn’t the fact that they’d stolen things from her, broken things, messed the place up – although any of that would, under usual circumstances, be enough to bring on a panic attack.
No, it was the fact that these strangers had invaded her personal space. And they had done it so easily. And there was nothing Emma could do about it.
Despite many sleepless nights full of irrational worries about the possibility of a home invasion happening, most of the time she felt safe and comfortable here. It was the one place in the world where she had order, and nothing could disrupt that order.
She couldn’t stop her obsessive thoughts or control her compulsions. But she could organise her space.
So the fact that a group of men she didn’t know had entered her house and done as they pleased – the thing she’d fretted about during all those nights had actually come to pass – was fucking with her mind.
Nowhere was truly safe.
Still, Emma stayed sitting there for a while, getting up only to lock the door when more infected started turning up in the streets. Unable to make herself leave the place that had been her safe space for so long.
When she’d fled yesterday there had been someone in danger, and it hadn’t been so difficult to bring herself to act. To help the helpless.
But with no certainty as to where her sister was now, and her original plan compromised by the thieves who’d nicked her car, Emma understood just how fear-driven she really was. Yes, she had put herself in danger to help Terry, but it had been more the fear of staying where she was and being alone that had compelled her at that moment. She had been steering the ship, but anxiety was the wind in the sails.
It was getting dark again by the time Emma had decided what to do next. She didn’t want to be outside at night. She would have to wait for morning. Maybe catch some sleep, though she didn’t think it likely despite how little of it she’d had the previous two nights.
*
A change of clothes – her sweaty jeans and t-shirt replaced with a pair of khaki hiking trousers, black vest top and a loose green corduroy jacket.
A steak knife clutched in her hand.
Attempting to nap on the sofa, but failing to lay there with her eyes closed for longer than five minutes without getting up and checking the windows.
Watching the infected ambling insect-like down the road…
Finally, the waking sky blushed as the sun reared its head. Even with the monsters stalking the streets, Emma was moved by how beautiful the sunrise was.
Never a crier, she was surprised to find tears in her eyes as she looked around at her home for what would probably be the last time. Staying was pointless, she reminded herself. There was nothing here for her anymore.
Emma opened the front door and rushed out into the unknown, again.
6.
Emma reasoned that if she just kept running, the dead wouldn’t get her, and it wouldn’t take a long time to reach Westland’s Park with Stanway Green just beyond. Surely there would be less infected in the open fields of the park area than in town?
Once she got there, she could go around Beacon End through the green and find the quiet lane where Dave’s uncle lived.
The infected were slow. Emma wasn’t. She’d always been good at cardio, always had great stamina – and she could run fast.
As a kid, Emma would win every footrace in the school playground and every game of Manhunt was a breeze for her. As an adult, she regularly went for runs in the park. She enjoyed them and sometimes they actually helped to clear her head, pumping her anxious energy into physical activity.
But it wasn’t clearing her mind today.
What if I get there and nobody else has made it?
What if the others are dead?
What if Leena’s dead?
There were two zombies in front of her and she slipped between them, narrowly avoiding their outstretched, blood-smeared hands.
She was starting to feel the burn in her legs. She had been straight-up sprinting for several minutes now, trying to imagine that the zombies she kept darting past were just regular people, trying to ignore the hideous sound of teeth cracking together as they snapped their jaws.
Huffing, feet pounding, dodging the dead. Running non-stop. The minutes felt like hours.
Then Emma realised the next turn was Shrub End Road; not far from the park now.
But as she was coming to the end of the road, she heard something – the hiss of compressed air, like the sound of a bus braking. Having grown used to hearing nothing but snapping teeth, car alarms blaring in the distance, and the occasional unsettling scream of raw human terror, this sound was strange to her ears.
The thrum of a large engine drawing nearer all but confirmed that it was a bus. Remembering the men who had stolen her car, Emma stepped into a driveway and squatted behind a wheelie bin to hide.
A blue and white bus roared by, crossing the mini roundabout at the end of the road she
