CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

EVENTUALLY I WRESTLED Zombie Melissa into one of the chairs, tied the restraints and took off the hood. She got a few good scratches in when I cut through the tag holding her wrists together, but somehow I managed to get through the experience without being bitten.

As Zombie Melissa snarled and snapped, tied to her treatment chair, Ghost Melissa showed me where the stabiliser was in one of the medical fridges.

It wasn’t hard to miss, a multi-pronged syringe thing with nasty coloured liquids in it.

It matched the description Gregson had scribbled on the corner of the map.

Gregson had also written something else in spidery handwriting: ‘Inject into neck’.

Right then.

 

 

‘SORRY,’ I SAID to Ghost Melissa as I pulled Zombie Melissa’s head back by the hair. I had to grip tightly as she struggled, trying to bite my arm, but eventually I got the multi-needle to her neck and pressed the button. She bucked even more as the little needles pricked her skin and the liquid disappeared, at which point I let go and stepped out of reach as fast as I could.

Zombie Melissa jerked back a couple of times, struggling against her restraints, fingers stretching out. Then she collapsed forward, head down, face covered by lank hair, and was still.

I waited for a minute, watching intently.

‘Was that it?’ I asked, turning to Ghost Melissa.

But she was gone.

I was just debating whether to get in close and check if Zombie Melissa—just Melissa now, I guess—had any vital signs when she threw back her head and drew in a huge breath, followed by a violent coughing fit that propelled globs of blackened phlegm across the room, leaving thick strands dangling from the corners of her mouth. That turned into a cycle of coughs and rapid, shallow breaths, like hyperventilation or the breathing I’d seen women do on TV when giving birth.

As she jerked back and forth in the chair, breathing rapidly, Melissa’s skin was turning bright red, her eyes open and staring into space, fingers clawing into the arm-rests of her chair.

Melissa shook, her entire body moving in waves of fits, and the signs of illness—the yellowishness of her skin and the blackness of her extremities—seemed to be driven out by the sunburnt redness that coursed through her flesh, leaving her skin as raw and pink as new growth over a wound. Her teeth were clenched and her staring eyes began to focus into a recognisable expression, one of panic and desperation. Tears ran down her cheeks and flowed into the sweat that coursed down from her scalp, soaking her clothes.

Then she froze, let out a slow breath as gentle as a sigh, and collapsed back into the chair, exhausted. Steam rose off her skin as the redness began to fade, and she just lay back, breathing slowly, eyes blinking out the sweat and tears.

I stepped forward, and her gaze settled on me.

‘Melissa?’ I asked. Even though her ghost had gone, and presuming that she was now technically alive, I had no idea whether the spirit I had met would be reincorporated into the revived Melissa, or just banished into nothingness. Would her time as a ghost be remembered, forgotten or just erased altogether?

‘Yes, David, it’s me,’ she said, elated, still breathing heavily, cheeks flushed. ‘Could you...?’

She nodded down to where one of her wrists had become twisted in the restraints.

‘Of course,’ I said, and began to unclip the restraints, starting with the wrists, then the bands around the chest, and finally freeing her ankles. She didn’t move at first, instead rotating her feet and hands and flexing her limbs slightly, as if trying to warm up after a cramp.

‘Here,’ I said, helping her stand up.

‘How does it feel to be alive?’ I asked. Melissa was hot to the touch, even through her clothes, but I knew that we didn’t have time for her to recover. We needed to get moving.

Melissa didn’t answer me, but instead put her free hand behind my neck, torn nails scratching a little at my collar, and pulled my head down, drawing up towards me to kiss me. There was a moment of alarm and disgust as I caught a taste of something residually foul on her breath, of old meat and rotten leaves, but as her mouth pressed against mine that brief scent of decay was replaced by a flavour that was fresh and alive, a salty tang of fresh sweat and minerals.

Besides, the intensity of the moment, the passion behind the kiss was irresistible, and I pulled her up to me, returning the kiss, my arms around her. Holding her, the movement of her chest as she breathed and the beating of her heart so close to mine, she felt more alive than anyone, and in turn I felt more alive than I had before.

When she withdrew from me, the longer kiss followed by a couple of quick, fleeting ones, our lips glancing against each other’s, she ended by biting my lip slightly, tugging it towards her for a moment as if not wanting to entirely let go.

‘Okay,’ I said as she dropped back to her own level, feet flat against the floor, head lowered slightly, perhaps in embarrassment. Her hair, still damp with sweat, smelled hot and oily. I breathed that smell in, my head resting on hers.

‘We still need to go,’ I said quietly.

She nodded a couple of times, before looking up, smiling slightly. I smiled back.

We unlocked the door to the treatment room, and moved out into the corridor, Melissa still leaning on me, but her grip loosening as she began to walk, her legs supporting her own weight again.

As Melissa stepped away from me, walking on her own, she brushed her fingers down my sleeve before letting go, and gave me another smile.

Then she doubled up, collapsing to the floor, curling up into a foetal position. She gave a low moan.

I dropped into a crouch and put my arm around her once more.

‘Come on, let me help you,’ I said, letting her hand rest on my forearm so she could use me to push herself up to her feet. ‘It’s not surprising you’re still weak, after everything you’ve been through.’

‘No,’ she said, dazed as I helped her walk, stumbling beside me. ‘It’s not weakness, it’s something else.’

‘What is it?’ I asked, but as much as I honestly did care, I was distracted. I wasn’t sure how fast the two of us could move like this if she remained so weak and unsteady on her feet, or, god forbid, got worse. While Gregson said the zombies weren’t interested in him after he took the stabiliser, and presumably Melissa would be similarly unappetising, I was still zombie bait, and would be vulnerable while I helped her walk.

‘It’s...’ She trailed off, and I stopped walking, looking at her. Her eyes were tear-stung and red, a look of confusion there with some other expression seemingly threatening to overwhelm her, one eyelid twitching furiously.

‘Hunger,’ she said with a sense of bitterness, and grief, and I could see those emotions welling in her, before being overwhelmed by the urge itself, her face setting to a more animalistic purpose. Her hold on my shoulder became a rigid grip, her free hand pulling the scarf away from my neck, and then she was pulling me down towards her again, but this time with a different, crueller passion, her mouth opening to sink her teeth into my neck, her teeth chewing deep into the flesh of my throat, choking me as I felt my windpipe crushed and torn.

I couldn’t scream or protest as agony and shock overwhelmed me, my limbs kicking out helplessly as I tried to breathe but couldn’t, my movements clumsy and drowsy and a rush, a great rush of pain and panic and I don’t know what else causing me to slip, to lose my hold on consciousness, the whole world lolling sideways and my vision fading as she tore a chunk out of my neck and let me fall to the ground.

I barely felt myself land, so overwhelming was the pain from the bite, but that was numbing now too, and the ceiling above was just a blur of white, and the last thing I was aware of was a sound of teeth chewing through tough meat, a deep gulp and, right at the end, a grunt of bestial satisfaction as I lost my grip on consciousness and life altogether.