George (Book 1): The Long Road Home Read online

  George: The Long Road Home

  By

  Scarlet Le Clair

  Copyright © 2016 Scarlet Le Clair

  This book is a work of fiction, names of characters, some places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or stored in a database in any form, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This book shall not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent.

  Published by Scarlet Le Clair 2016

  Edited by Simon O’Neill

  Cover art by Terra James

  Cover Model Elman España

  All Rights Reserved

  Prologue: Kelly

  Lying on my king sized bed with my two gorgeous children, Poppy aged 7 and Cameron aged 3, I slowly close my eyes. I can hear them downstairs, the strangers, and now outside our bedroom door, crashing into things and moaning those God-awful inhuman moans. I imagine them trailing mud, blood and God knows what else through my once spotless home and I cringe at the thought of what my house looks like now.

  We have been locked up inside my bedroom since the second week that those things came into our village. That was six months ago.

  The first news reports came a day after my birthday, on the 3rd of March. Riots in the North of England, with extreme violence followed by an outbreak of a new strain of flu virus. By the end of that week, the rioting had spread throughout the country and now nowhere was safe.

  I always had a love of zombies and my husband and I often joked about where we would go and what we would take with us in the event of an apocalypse but this disease or whatever it was had come around so quickly, nobody had a chance. The government had urged everyone who was still alive to secure their houses as best as possible and try to wait it out.

  "Help is on the way," they said.

  Within weeks the death toll had risen to hundreds of thousands, with rumors that the dead were rising up again to feast on the flesh of the living, ripping and shredding them apart with their teeth and hands and passing along the disease.

  The army were trying their best to control the situation but they were obviously outnumbered and this ... disease was spreading so fast they just couldn't keep up.

  In the first week, George, my husband did a quick trip to the local store and got a load of tinned food, cereal, water and some powdered milk along with a treat of some hot chocolate for the kids. He even bought some packs of batteries for the kid’s DVD players. We took the kettle and camping stove upstairs to our bedroom. We told the kids we were having an indoor camping holiday. They loved the idea.

  The first two weeks were great spending time with the kids and George but then the screams started and things got even scarier. Guns are rare here in the UK but we did hear a couple going off now and again. George and myself blocked off the stairs as best we could and locked the bedroom door then we pushed our chest of drawers in front of the door. We had an en suite bathroom so at least those needs would be taken care of for a while. We honestly thought somebody would come and save us. We had a little fire escape out of our bedroom window onto the roof of our kitchen that we could use as a quick exit.

  So here we are, the three of us, the kids and me, cuddled up on the bed. George had gone out what felt like a month ago to get more food and had not come back. In my head I’m praying that he is safe but my heart is telling me otherwise, he would never leave us here alone.

  The zombies have made their way through our makeshift barriers and are now outside the bedroom door. I can smell the rotten odor that accompanies them and it makes me gag. It’s a mixture of feces, vomit, rotten eggs and spoiled meat and a whole other array of disgusting stenches. They bang the door and I wonder how they knew where we were, are they attracted by smell? Sound? Or both?

  I look to the children, both are sleeping peacefully, their breaths are getting shallower, the cocktail of drugs I added to their hot chocolate earlier seems to be working. I cannot let them live in this world any longer, just to survive another day to be ripped apart and eaten by those things. George is gone and there is no help coming.

  As they take their last breaths I hold them both close to me. “I love you both to the moon and back,” I tell them, “you two are my everything and no longer will you have to suffer the fear of what comes next. I hope we meet again.” Tears stream down my face and my hands shake so badly I can barely move the covers but I manage to tuck them in tightly, stroking the hair from their faces one last time. They look like two sleeping angels.

  Next I prepare and drink my mixture of hot chocolate and sleeping pills, I lie down next to Poppy and I think about the good times in my life - meeting and marrying George and having my children, the holidays we had taken together. Yes, we had an amazing journey. I start to feel very sleepy and can no longer lift my arms or legs, in the back of my mind I can hear a lot of noise coming from downstairs and now on the stairs. I imagine a horde of zombies making their way up to me, searching for their next meal, their loud banging on the bedroom door and I think I hear someone calling my name.

  My eyes are really heavy now and just as I’m about to give in and go to sleep I see George’s face in front of me. No that can’t be right, George is missing, but here he is, screaming and pulling at me, but I cannot understand what he is saying and I’m just too tired to move.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper to him, and to the kids I whisper, “Goodnight my two sweethearts.” I see men in army uniforms and guns flood the room just before everything turns black.

  CHAPTER 1: George

  The decision to leave Kelly and the kids on their own, even for a short period of time was the hardest one of my life. I was scared, we all were, but we were running out of food and water and needed to get more supplies before we were completely out.

  I was also curious to see what was left of our small, quiet village and to try to plan an escape route, because I had a feeling that we would be needing one soon.

  I decided that I would go and see what was left, if anything, in our village shop. So I grabbed my hunting knife, which was really just for show as I had never been hunting in my life, and my back pack. In it I put a small bottle of water, leaving the majority of what we had left for my family.

  Poppy came over to give me a hug, she had drawn me a picture of the four of us walking together out in the Forest. Her chocolate brown pony tail sweeping from side to side as she walked.

  "Like we used to do with daddy," she said, smiling up at me, her face beaming with pride.

  I smiled, remembering the days long gone, when our biggest worries were what to have for dinner, not trying to prevent us being the dinner.

  "Hopefully we will again soon sweetie," I replied, I folded the picture and tucked it in the inside pocket of my jacket.

  I gave her, Kelly and Cameron, hugs and kisses. With whispered promises that all would be ok and that I would be back before they knew it, I opened the bedroom window and slipped through it without much effort. It was designed as a fire escape and opened out onto the roof. Thankfully there were not many ‘strangers’, that’s what we were telling the kids to call them, around that I could see. Although these strangers were very much like the zombies that I used to fight against in video games when I was younger.

  "Lock this window and don't open it up for anyone other than me. I love you, see you soon,” I promised Kelly who was frantically nodding her head, her deep blue eyes wide with fear. We had been married for 15 years, together for 18 and she was still as beautiful to me as the
day we met, she was 5ft 5, with long blonde hair down to her waist, and the deepest blue eyes I had ever seen. Her skin was pale and in complete contrast to my lightly tanned looking skin, and dark hair.

  I leaned forward and brushed my lips softly against hers, resting my forehead against hers for a few seconds, breathing in her vanilla scent.

  Turning away, I slowly stepped out onto the kitchen roof and sidestepped over to the large tree in our back garden, it would be my way down to the ground.

  My feelings were all over the place. I was excited to be out of the house after being closed in for so long, but terrified that I would run into the strangers. I looked back up to the bedroom window and saw three pairs of scared, anxious eyes looking back at me.

  I blew them a kiss, trying to seem confident and moved away cautiously, and climbed down the tree. My hands shook so badly that I found it hard to grip the tree and nearly fell. I looked left and right as I made my way slowly to the front of our house.

  We lived in a small village in Wales with a population of around 1500 people, where everyone knew everyone else, and we had no idea how many of our friends were still alive, how many were dead and how many were now walking dead.

  At the beginning, some of the villagers were evacuated to military camps, others left for the hills - our village was surrounded by mountains and valleys, and a small few, like us, chose to stay put and hoped the government would do their job, as promised and save us.

  The houses in our street were all terraced, with pretty little front gardens, most of them enclosed by small fences. We were the end house so our garden wound its way all the way from the back to the front. I got to our front gate and looked both ways before stepping out and heading left down the street.

  As I was about half way down the street, there was a huge bang on the window to my right. I jumped sideways and managed to swallow the terrified scream and some choice expletives that threatened to come blaring through my mouth.

  I turned to see old Mr. Jenkins and he had not fared as well as us. He was dead, well one of the walking dead anyway. He was bumping up against the window trying to get to me, he didn't seem to notice the double paned glass in his way. His hands clawed at the glass leaving bloody handprints where ever they touched, his mouth moved up and down also leaving dirty marks where ever it touched, his black tongue licking the glass almost as if he was trying to taste me.

  His clothes were a bloody mess but I could not see signs of any bite marks or any other damage on him although I didn't get close enough to have a good look. I backed away and shivered involuntarily, looking down at the floor and closing my eyes. I felt a little bad for I had never really liked Mr. Jenkins. He was grumpy and always moaning about where the cars were parked in the street, or the barking dogs and loud children playing in their gardens. But nobody deserved to go like this, and then come back again, not even allowed to rest in death.

  Although not a religious man I made the sign of the cross and muttered, "God help us all," as I carried on down the street, moving a little quicker this time.

  I thought about the rest of our family and hoped they were all safe but I knew the odds were, that we had lost some of them, if not all of them.

  As soon as Kelly and the kids were safe somewhere or when all this was over I was going to try to find my family first and then Kelly's, I promised myself.

  I came to the end of the street opposite the park. It was a typical small village park with swings, a see-saw, climbing frame, and a roundabout. Not so typical was the dozen or so zombies just wandering around with no purpose, trapped inside the park. They must have gotten in through the 'push' gates but were not able to 'pull' them back open.

  I stood there for a while behind a wall just watching them and wondering how I was going to get pass them to the shop without them seeing me. I was worried that with enough incentive they would figure out the gates and I didn't want to be that incentive. I didn't have to wonder long as there was a loud noise at the top of the park and several car alarms went off. All of the zombies started to move to the top of the park. I didn't wait to see what had made the noise. I just started running and I made my way in between the parked cars on the road at the bottom of the park, thankfully all were empty. But some had their doors and boots open as if the occupants had left in a hurry. I made a note to check some of these on the way back to see if I could find anything we could use.

  I made it to the front of the store easily and opened the door slowly.

  The bell on top of the door rang out, it wasn't loud really but to me it sounded like an alarm bell had just gone off. I waited, holding my breath in fear that this too would be heard. I must have stood there for at least two minutes in silence. When I didn't hear any footsteps I stepped slowly into the store closing the door behind me.

  CHAPTER 2: Sweets for my Sweets

  The store was small and dark, all the lights were off, but once my eyes adjusted to the gloom I could see all corners of it easily with the little light that came in from the windows. The only area I could not completely see was behind the till, the brown, wooden counter was in my way.

  There was a smell of death in the air which immediately put my guard up, so I walked up to the counter and peeped behind cautiously, knife in my hand. I really wished I hadn't. The body, what was left of it, was propped up against the cigarette stall, it was now a horrible grey color, with a gaping hole in its skull.

  He was wearing a pair of light blue jeans and a navy sweat shirt. The blood that had sprayed the walls and run onto the shop keeper’s clothes was now dried and a dark brown color. His sweatshirt looked stiff with blood and gore. The gun was still close by. I didn't have time to wonder why a shop keeper in a small quiet village like ours had a gun, I just tried to carry on as if he wasn't there.

  My stomach threatened to release its contents but I counted to ten under my breath and managed to get control over it. Looking at my reflection in the mirrored glass of the fridge, I took a deep breath calming myself. Dark brown eyes looked back at me, my jet black hair, although normally kept short and spiked had begun to get a little longer now that there was nobody left to cut it, and there was more than a little stubble on my face. The face looking back at me looked withdrawn and tired, not surprising, since we didn’t have much to eat and gave the kids our extra portions, and that I spent most of the night keeping watch over my family.

  Taking another deep breath, I walked around the counter to grab the Gun and to see if I could spot anything else that may be useful. I have never used a gun before but I figured that I may as well take it.

  The cigarette stall was empty as were the lighters and matches compartments.

  I looked under the counter and found around half a box of ammo and a disposable lighter. I put them into one of the pockets in my bag and moved back around the counter and into the store. Directly in front of me again were the fridges and what little was left in them had already spoiled so I didn't bother with them.

  As I moved to the shelving area I could see two tins of peaches in syrup heavily dented laying on the floor along with a tin of carrots, they went into the bag, I also found a pack of tissues which again went into the bag.

  There was nothing left on the shelves, food wise but I saw some Kids magazines left on the shelf to my right and grabbed two of them putting them into the bag as I moved towards the back of the room to where the sweet and biscuit isles were, and it was completely bare. Desperate to have something else to take home for the kids I got down on my hands and knees and looked under the shelf. Sure enough there were three packs of sweets right at the back where they must have rolled. I lay down flat on the floor and stretched my arm out as far as I could, I easily reached the first two packets, grabbed them and tucked them into my back pocket, I thought they were wine gums but I didn't stop to look, and as I was stretching out for the third pack my fingertips were just brushing the end of the sweet wrapper when I heard the tell-tale sound of the doorbell going. My heart hammered in my chest threat
ening to burst out. Please let it be another living human I thought.

  “Get up slowly and turn around,” I heard coming from a deep, rough, gravelly sounding voice. "Will, go check him for any weapons," the voice demanded.

  I got up slowly like they asked and turned around sighing in relief that the guys were alive and not zombies. I held my hands up in the air, my rucksack lay at my feet.

  "Hi guys, I don’t have any weapons and I’m not looking for any trouble I'm just looking for food."

  The man I assumed was Will came towards me cautiously and started to pat me down, satisfied with my body search, he then picked up my bag and started to go through it.

  He took out the gun and ammo but did not show that I had a knife in there. I tried not to let the confusion show on my face. Why did he cover for me? Perhaps he had missed it?

  "Nope nothing on him but these sweets, empty gun, few rounds of ammo and some kid’s magazines," Will told the other guy. "We should just let him go Deacon, he’s not worth our time. We need to be getting back." Will gave the gun to Deacon and put my bag back on the floor.

  "Mmmmm," Deacon said still looking at me, a small smile, more like a grimace touching his lips. "You got more survivors with you? Kids perhaps? I do like kids."

  The way he said it sent chills through my body, I had to protect my family from this man, I had a feeling that he was serious trouble.

  "No, no one else, only me," I replied, looking at the floor afraid that if my eyes met his then he would see straight through my lies.

  "I see … so why do you have kid’s magazines in your backpack?"

  "I, I," I stuttered as my brain tried to come up with a lie quick enough for my mouth to tell. "I like kids also so I keep them in case I come across any." I smiled weakly, hoping he believed my lie.