Then, a little after 9pm, her voice came over the airwaves again. It was different this time. There was no humour, no fear, no demands. There was iron in it, a fire-tempered resolve that uttered just two more words into the void before the radio fell silent.
“I’m coming.”
Staring down into the hungry undead that clamoured around the source of her voice, Nate exhaled a long, slow breath.
“God love you, kid,” he whispered. “But I’m not sure I want you to.”
OCTOBER 8th, 2010
FAITH
I don’t know what’s happening, but I know I don’t like it, Freya. I can’t help but feel a little arrogant when I say this apocalypse seems personal, but I can’t ignore the facts. I will start by saying – with a heady amount of relief – that Nate, Mark and Alicia are all back at the lodge, safe and sound. I am so fucking grateful they are okay, but holy shit, what a raging clusterfuck I walked into. It’s about 2am now, and I need to write all this shit down while it’s still in my head. I can’t sleep at the minute anyway because my ribs hurt like a bastard. Maria thinks I might have cracked one or two in my bone-headed rescue. I’ll get all this written down, then I’ll take the prescription strength painkillers to knock me the fuck out so I can sleep. I know I’ll be all fuzzy in the head tomorrow morning from the Tramadol afterglow, so I need to get all this down before I enter the blurry haze of industrial strength pain relief.
After trying the radio every fifteen minutes for like… three hours, I think… I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. If something had happened, I needed to at least see for myself, and I couldn’t wait until morning to do it. It’s getting fucking cold of a night now, and if they were hurt or trapped in some way, they didn’t have the gear to survive a bitterly cold night. If I rolled up the following day and discovered them dead from hypothermia, well, I’d never be able to live with that guilt.
“Erin, what are you doing?” Maria asked, as I began purposefully getting my shit together.
“I’m going to get them.”
“Alone?” Maria’s jaw dropped wide, her gaze disbelieving. “In the dark?”
“There isn’t anyone else,” I shrugged. “If they’re hurt, or need help, then I’m all they’ve got. I’ll have to be enough.”
“You’re enough, flower,” said Norah from the sitting area.
The comment caught me completely by surprise, spoken as it was with such quiet conviction. Charlie was sat beside her playing on the Xbox, Norah with one protective arm wrapped around the kid’s slim shoulders as the handsome little sod snuggled into her. She was keeping his mind from his dad’s absence by sitting with him and have him explain every little aspect of his game to keep him distracted. She looked in my direction, unadulterated support etched into every line of her face and a set to her jaw that said she believed I could do it, that I could bring them home, and holy shit, did that light a fire in my belly. With Norah’s blessing, such unquestionable faith given without hesitation, I could face anything with the soaring confidence of a five-year old in a Batman costume. Fuck all was getting in my way this night and that old Spartan saying rolled through my head.
Come home with your shield, or on it.
I bloody love that woman.
I needed to go with a solid plan though. There were still a couple of petrol/electric hybrids left in the small parking area of the lodge from the gong-banging yoga crowd, including a little Smart car. You know the ones, those stupid little two-seater things that look absolutely ridiculous that people bizarrely choose to own? On purpose? Huh, I hope that wasn’t your car, Freya. I never asked which one was yours.
Well, if it was, what the fuck were you thinking, you mad woman? Not cool, Freya. Not cool.
My intention was to come back with our pickup and if I had to abandon one of the vehicles from our long-fallen yogi brothers and sisters, it was going to be the tiny Twatmobile. Hey, at least it would be dark and anyone living wouldn’t be able to see me dying of shame as I drove that horrible little part-electric go-kart. Shit, I didn’t even want the undead seeing me drive that stupid little thing. I can just imagine zombies pointing and silently laughing at me as I whizz on by in my toy car. Still, at least it would be quiet.
I checked there was enough fuel and charge remaining to get me to the builder’s yard, and a quick test saw it hum into life. It would easily do the five or six miles there and back on the country roads I’d use to get where I needed to go.
Not knowing what I was running into, I had to plan for every eventuality. Maria put together a first aid kit in case someone was hurt, I loaded up extra ammo in case they had burned through their loadout in some form of engagement, chucked in a large bottle of water, and then I did something I had to ask Nate’s forgiveness for later. I went into his room.
I didn’t know what I was going to be driving into and didn’t want to approach the yard with headlights ablaze, so I raided Casa de Nate and rooted around until I found his holy grail.
His precious NVG’s.
It took me about fifteen minutes to figure out how the things worked. For a little while, I must have looked like someone’s technophobe auntie that had just had one of those new-fangled Virtual Reality headsets plonked on their head, thus displaying a spectacular lack of technical acumen. I banged about in his room with the goggles pulled down and light off to check they worked, had
