“What's wrong with your friend?” Cassidy said.
I looked up from the floor, watching her direct the question to Zoe.
“She's been bitten,” Zoe replied.
Cassidy responded immediately.
“By what?” Her voice was clearly higher than she'd intended.
There was a collective silence and I couldn't tell who was asleep and who was just pretending because they didn’t want to answer.
“She lost a lot of blood, but she's okay now,” Zoe replied.
“It wouldn't stop bleeding,” I said. There was a sound of restless movement around the lantern light.
“Is she a haemophiliac?” Cassidy replied.
Lily raised her head. Naomi and Zoe sat up straight.
I looked to Matt and to Toby, whose expressions had the same alertness. Only Andrew lay asleep, not joining the stunned silence as the words ran around our heads.
I was the first to shake mine.
“We'd have known,” I said.
“If she'd known,” Zoe replied, her eyebrows high on her forehead.
“She's a nurse,” I said. “She would have known.”
Naomi stood.
“What's your explanation? Go on,” she said, shrugging the blankets off her shoulders and stepping out of the dim glow.
Heads dipped once again. Naomi was right. What was the remaining explanation? Chloe had been attacked by a Zombie, but Zombies aren't real. There are no examples in nature, apart from that fungus that drives ants up trees before the infestation pierces through their brain. Apart from that, they're confined to the screen and Halloween parties. Right? Only one example in nature. Is that enough?
“I know what I saw,” I said, pulling a great lug of air.
“So, what did you see? Tell us.” It was Naomi's voice, taunting me in the shadows.
Soon she reappeared and sat back down with a rectangular bottle of bourbon at her lips, offering the bottle to Zoe as she finished.
I kept my mouth still as I considered her words. She was calling me out again, questioning my sanity. Would I do the same if I was on the other side? If she had gone through what I had to free Chloe from the grip of that animal? Would I believe her without question?
No, I wouldn't.
Pulling a long draw from the bottle I winced as the spirit burned down my throat.
“Her eyes were milky white,” I said in a slow voice, the last of the fumes escaping my throat.
“Cataracts,” Naomi replied.
“She was barely in her thirties,” I said, trying hard not to let my voice falter.
“She was in a bad way,” Zoe said. Her voice was soft; at least Zoe was desperate not to antagonise the discussion.
“Half her face was missing,” I replied, my voice growing harder.
Cassidy looked down at her sister.
“Sorry,” I said, lowering my volume. “But we watched her die. She'd stopped breathing. We all saw it.”
I looked towards Andrew, still asleep. I turned to Chloe and her pale, washed-out face.
“And that smell,” I replied, and caught a whiff of the odour, the stench of decay. The sting of human waste.
Taking the bottle again, I dowsed my throat. Still the smell was there.
“Can none of you smell that?” I asked, and watched the group exchange looks, watched each sample the air, their noses turning up. They could smell it, I was certain.
“There is something hanging around,” Toby said, but a flicker of light on the far wall caught my attention.
I stood and through a thin cloud of smoke I saw the far end of the warehouse had begun to glow orange.
16
“Holy shit,” I said, almost under my breath.
Toby's words were not so quiet as he climbed to his feet, his face glowing in the reflection of the heat pouring our way.
“Get up, get up,” I shouted, bending down to shake Andrew's shoulders. I didn't wait for him to stir. Instead, I ran to the fire exit and pulled the bright red extinguisher from the wall.
Running along the aisles, the heat built on my chest. It would have been a welcome relief if it hadn't been for the fumes catching in my breath.
Toby joined me, another extinguisher in his hand as we rushed forward to the glowing wall with the remains of plastic posters turning black as they slid to the floor.
At first we saw no flames and only thin smoke, but as we rushed forward the windowless double doors burst open. A cloud of smoke and toxic heat blasted out, forcing us to stop as we doubled over.
Glancing back, my mouth in the crook of my arm, I watched Toby retreating and turned back to see flames lick around the side of the doors as they rattled open and closed, billowing with heat.
I abandoned the extinguisher before running back to our campsite, joining Toby's shouts for everyone to grab what they could and get the hell out.
Instead of leaping to the exit, the group split, disappearing amongst the shelves. I knelt at Chloe's side, the rancid stench powerful enough to break through the thick smoke scratching at my lungs.
Lily knelt with me, wrapping Chloe in the blankets, folding up the corners ready as a makeshift stretcher.
Sharing her downcast look, I took a moment. Chloe had grown even more pale, more gaunt as the background light grew. Her breath more shallow, barely there.
To the building heat, I looked along the aisles, smelt the burning plastic before I saw the contents of the shelves smouldering as they dripped to the floor.
I shouted, hurrying everyone toward the front of the shop as I dragged Chloe's blankets behind me and pulled her toward the barred exit.
Soon I was joined by the others with rucksacks on their backs, the load getting lighter with each hand adding a hold
