Chapter Two
G ravesend lives up to its name. The silence as I get off the train is deafening. Unsettling.
Was it like this twenty years ago? I shrug my bag on properly and follow Rae and Autumn further down the platform.
Green paint peels off a rusted fence. The ticket office lies by the gates, and I wander in that direction, though not before taking stock of the way Dane is speaking in low tones to the train driver, who wears his own grave expression.
Confirming our return time, most likely. It doesn’t matter to me. I plan to be here in the morning on the day we leave; the earliest the train will get here will be just after midday.
Missing it isn’t an option, of course. Even if I were to survive the long hike back down to the Citadel, they wouldn’t let me in. No hunter is worth the time and expense of a full examination, and they’re not inclined to wait around and see if I turn.
Never mind that everyone knows how quickly a bite sinks into the skin, effects showing in a few short hours. Never mind that this is the furthest north a team has ever been because we’ve cleared so much land between here and there.
I peek through the dusty window of the ticket office.
No one’s inside. Everything appears to be neatly in its place, in fact, which is a surprise.
Panic. That’s what suffuses my memories when I think of the first few days of the outbreak.
Hysteria, but justified, because what else were we supposed to do?
And we’ve seen evidence of that at every station we’ve arrived at so far. Shattered glass. Torn-down fences. Old stains that could be rust but are more likely—
Blood. There’s always so much blood.
“Isaac,” Rae calls, and I lift my head, for a moment catching sight of my reflection in the glass. Hollow-eyed. Hollow-cheeked. I look half-dead myself, and I don’t let my gaze linger. I amble back down the platform to where the others are all standing.
The train rumbles away. The taste of petrol lingers in the air, familiar to me now, but feeling somehow out of place here. We all fall silent until it snakes away in the distance.
“He’ll be back at midday on the eleventh,” Dane says. “You know our job. Clear this town. We need a clean sweep before we get back aboard.”
Otto frowns, tilting his head back to take in what we can see of the town beyond the station. Not much from here, even at his height. A ramshackle row of houses squats across the road, but it’s a narrow lane—no pavement—that I assume leads to whatever this town considers its centre.
He wipes his brow, pale skin already pinking despite the gloom. “Clean sweep? I checked the map. It’s not a small place.”
“It’s empty,” Blake cuts in. “Shouldn’t find many.”
Autumn shivers. She looks spooked already, more like a little girl than a young woman, what with how big her eyes have gone. “Is it always this quiet?”
I tilt my head to listen. Not a bird call for miles, of course, but that’s usually the case wherever there’s an infestation. Animals got bitten too in the beginning. Like rabies, my mum told me.
I don’t really know what that is.
Something we didn’t have, she said. Something we never had.
Was that why we were so unprepared? I’ve no idea about the state of the rest of the world.
No one does. Every so often, someone will find themselves on a street corner in the Citadel, will rage about hunger and blood and that it’s only us, the virus never left, never escaped this wild island, and that they know, the ones who rule us, they started it.
They never last long, those people. There one second. Gone the next.
Never heard from again.
I shake myself out of my reverie when Dane and Blake exchange sharp grins. Pathetic, the pair of them, and my hand tightens on my bat, but bashing their little heads in won’t achieve a damn thing. Whether I like it or not—and I do not —the more manpower, the better.
“Come on,” Dane says with a derisive snort, not bothering to answer Autumn’s question. “Let’s check this place out.”
He takes point, our team leader for this job, and the rest of us fall in behind. I nod to Rae and take the rear. She should stay close to Autumn, at least for now. Autumn will grasp the ropes in a day or two.
The rest of us did.
For now, we ignore those dark houses and take a slow pace down the lane, following a sign that directs us to the town centre. Cars are still parked haphazardly about. Some of these people didn’t make it out.
Should be a zombie or two lurking somewhere nearby.
But we see nothing on our short journey.
Not a zombie. Not an animal. Nothing. I turn my bat in my grip, hands clammy the longer we go without a sign of movement.
We’ve never been to a town completely emptied before.
Even if the zombies take a while to be found in places, there’s evidence of their existence, signs that show us where they’ve gathered.
They do that after a while. Once their food runs out, which it inevitably does, they still, for some strange reason, keep moving. Another hunter once told me that it’s because the virus keeps their systems running. Keeps muscles and fibres twitching. Keeps them hungry.
But they’re rotting the whole while. It’s something I don’t understand. Something that seems dangerous to try to understand.
Sweat rolls down the back of my neck. It seems important here, too.
For a brief second, I allow myself to imagine a clean sweep with no need for hunting. Discovering that there are towns that can be inhabited again with no risk at all. Reporting that back—
Only a second. That’s too close to hope, and I need to be practical.
We enter the town square—once, I assume, the still-beating heart of this town—and take in boarded-up shops and the empty, open space.
Narrow roads snake to this place from all directions, shadowed on each side by buildings that seem threatening even in daylight.
It’s the perfect place for a trap; I just don’t know whether it’ll be better for the zombies or for us.
If we find any. And zombies aren’t smart enough to form an ambush, and we’ve seen no evidence of survivors so far, either.
That thought doesn’t stop the prickle of unease as I survey the space. I wander over to one of the shops—the sign declares it a butcher’s—and Dane’s head snaps in my direction.
“Don’t go far.”
I raise a hand in acknowledgement and keep walking. No evidence of riots or looting as far as I can see. I can’t find proof that zombies gorged here, battering down the doors and—
No, wait. I eye the door of the butcher’s shop once I’m up close. There’s something here. The windows are boarded, which I’d expect from a town that had any survivors after the initial wave, but this door is newer than the frame.
A lot newer.
A boot scuffs the ground behind me. “Weird, isn’t it?” Otto says, and I pretend my heart didn’t just leap into my throat.
“Yeah,” I mutter and glance back at him.
He’s wearing a cap to shield his pale eyes, but his face is still a little pink.
Past him, Dane and Blake are standing in the centre of the square.
Blake talks as Dane surveys the place. Rae is leading Autumn over to the old post office. “Seen signs of anything?”
Otto’s as good a tracker as anyone I’ve ever worked with. He’s got the patience for it, to wait and spot the signs others might miss. And I don’t like the way he frowns, then shakes his head.
“Nothing,” he replies. “It’s like it’s been cleared out, but there’s no evidence of anyone living, either.”
“Mm.” I cast my eyes back over the butcher’s shop door again. It looks solid. Secure. I can’t hear anything beyond it.
I don’t want to find survivors here. I’ve heard of teams who have, encounters that have inevitably turned violent, and people have been lost to them. Even if violence doesn’t dig its claws in, things never end well. How are we supposed to trust that they haven’t been bitten?
How are they supposed to trust us at all?
“Ever seen anything like this?” I ask Otto, still keeping my voice low. Dane and Blake shouldn’t be able to hear us at this distance, but I don’t trust either of them.
Sure, they’re not likely to let a zombie bite me, if only because having more of us around increases their odds of surviving later. But rat me out once we return to the Citadel? Blake wouldn’t even hesitate.
Otto shakes his head, and from the cautious dart of his eyes, his concern matches mine. “I was on a job about fifty miles from here last month. I mean, it wasn’t teeming, but…”
“Still some walking around?”
“Yeah.” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, then wipes the sweat on his trousers. “I’ve never heard of a place being entirely empty when a team arrives. Even where there are survivors who’ve cleared some out, there’s usually one or two still hanging around.”
I nod, taking it in. Blake heads in our direction, Dane not too far behind. Rae points up the hill. A church looms up there above the town, spires dark and intimidating where they stretch up towards rain-swollen clouds. Rae says something to Autumn, gesturing with her hands.
I study the church and fight the shiver that wants to wrack my spine. It would be a good place to stay, provided it’s empty, but if not, we’d have to clear it, and it’s already early afternoon. Night will creep up on us soon, it being October, so it might be a better idea to head up there tomorrow.
“Anything?” Blake demands when he gets close.
His surly tone makes me want to bare my teeth, but instead, I swallow and sweep a hand at the door. “Just this.”
He frowns, taking it in the same way I did. Dane stares at me instead of the door. I jerk my gaze away.
“No signs of survivors so far,” Blake says doubtfully.
Dane shrugs. That hunger is alight again in his eyes, but at least it isn’t directed at me. “Might’ve been around years ago. Might’ve moved on a month ago.”
True. But this place is strange. Uncanny. I don’t like the way all the cobblestone streets snake here, to this centre, or the deep, dark shadows that shift just at the corner of my vision. Anything could be watching us.
“What do you think?” Dane asks as Rae and Autumn approach. “This is probably the best spot to set up.”
I look at the church again. The doors should be solid, though at this distance, I can’t see if they’re open or not. The roof is patchy, but zombies can’t climb.
The doors are likely locked. Who knows how long it would take us to get inside.
“This is as good a place as any.” Blake shoulders past me to get to the door of the butcher’s shop.
We all know how to pick locks—it’s a fool’s errand to break down the best barrier between a hunter and a potential horde—but Blake is the fastest of us, and he has the door swinging open in a few minutes.
I tighten my grip on my bat. The door doesn’t make a sound as it opens into velvety darkness. I couldn’t hear any zombies inside before, but still…
It’s empty. The former shop front anyway. Cool air wafts out and I fancy I catch the scent of old meat, stale blood. It’s gone in a second, and I peer through the doorway as Blake steps inside. A thin layer of dust adorns the floor and counters, but otherwise it’s tidy. Empty.
Dane follows Blake inside and I shift over, leaning against the boarded-up window. I take in the square again. My skin prickles. I study the roofs that surround us, just in case a survivor is up there, but see no one.
“Weird, isn’t it?” Rae says softly.
Autumn looks between us, a puzzled frown pulling at her mouth, and Otto, just about to follow Dane and Blake into the shop, nods once.
“Weird,” I echo.
“I saw some stragglers on the way in,” she continues, “but it must’ve been fifty miles out. After that, I figured they weren’t making their way through the fields.”
“Same.”
Dane comes back out and squints in the sunlight. His attitude is more amiable now that the job has begun, but it won’t last. Already, tension is tightening the faint lines around his eyes.
“Blake and Otto are checking upstairs. Looks like that door’s reinforced too, so it should be safe enough for tonight. We’ll cover the square and a couple of these streets before it gets dark, then head up to the church tomorrow.”
“It’ll be a good vantage point,” Rae agrees begrudgingly.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
They continue talking—devising plans, dancing around the fact that this place is off-kilter in a way no other town we’ve cleared out has ever been—and I tune them out. Point me in the direction of a zombie, and I’ll do what I’m made to.
A shift in shadows on the opposite side of the square catches my attention. I trace what I can see of the winding cobblestone path with my eyes. It leads up to the church, I suspect, and there—
The shadow moves again. Flexes, rippling deeper for a brief moment. I push off from the shop front. A zombie?
Zombies don’t hide like that, though. It should already be shuffling into view. Hell, with how quiet it is here, we should all be able to hear it.
“Isaac?” Dane asks.
I shake my head. My thighs tremble as I take a few steps away.
What’s there?
Who’s there?
As though he hears my thoughts, a man steps briefly into view. He’s there and then gone, so all I get is a snapshot—smudged, hollow eyes, features angular and sharp, skin pale as bleached bone.
For a second, the air between us thrums with expectation . My breath catches in my throat. My stomach flutters.
He turns on his heel and runs.
“Isaac!” Dane shouts.
I don’t listen to him. I don’t hear him. I’m off like a shot, already chasing after whoever this stranger may be.