CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Blood is really warm,

it's like drinking hot chocolate

but with more screaming.

-Zombie Haiku

“No, please, Liza … Liza!”

His voice echoed through the hall, empty but for rows upon rows of pews, a stage, an altar. An ominously realistic statue of a ravaged Jesus, blood coiled around his limbs, head lolled. And him.

Him.

He grabbed her knife arm and it pissed her off how easily he pushed her back; how effortlessly. She let out a growling scream as he wrestled her blade from her hands. “Fuck you!” she screamed.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

She swung for him hard with a fist fuelled by fury but he weaved out of range and she righted herself before being thrown completely off balance, still letting out a noise of pure anger from deep in her throat. “How dare you dodge?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry! I … you can punch me if you want, I guess that’s at least--”

She swung again and jerked away.

“Stay still!”

“Liza, what the hell?” Lilian shouted, her fists balled and her face red. Liza stepped back, her heartbeat going a mile a minute.

“Lilian, you have to stay back. We’re no safer in here than we were out there.” She swallowed, and wiped her upper lip with the back of her trembling hand. Then pointed at the man she had tried to attack. “He’s the one who shot me.”

Blazer ran his fingers through his hair and grimaced at her accusation as Lilian gasped.

“Look, I … you freaked me out with all that murder talk. That talk about resources. But I regretted it, so fucking much. You have no idea. I’m so sorry, Liza. I came here to make amends. I knew you would be here.”

Liza shook her head. “There’s no way. No amends are going to be made. Drop the knife and kick it back to me.”

Blazer looked at her blade in his hands and shook his head hard as if he had forgotten it was there. He dropped it with a clang to the hard floor and then swept it back to her with the toe of his hiking boot. Looked like he had found that military store on his way here — he was wearing a thick jacket and combat trousers as well as the sturdy new shoes. It was a welcome change from the tank top, shorts and sandals, but he still looked like a douchebag. His hair was still combed back like a greaser, and his smile still looked as fake as anything.

“Look, I just … I got scared, and—”

“And the guns. Give them back. Kick them across.”

He raised his shoulders in a shrug. “They’re in the communal stores. I can take you to them.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I have nothing else you can steal; you know that, right? Neither does she. We have nothing.”

“I don’t want to steal anything,” he said. “I promise.”

“Don’t … you … soil my ears with your greasy promises,” she yelled, too angry to care about how much she was making sense.

“Liza.” He rubbed his eyelids with his fingertips and let out a sigh as if she were a troublesome child. She bristled so intensely she felt like she was close to sprouting hedgehog spikes.

“Are there … others here?” Lilian dared to ask.

Blazer nodded winningly, and she smiled, which made Liza’s face collapse in on itself in a scowl. “Yeah, just through here, in the back. The others are here.” He looked back to Liza. “Your friends. They’re all here, too.”

She blew out a breath. “You’re lying,” she said.

He looked genuinely surprised. “What would I have to gain by lying to you?”

“I…” She trailed off. Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know.”

“C’mon, Liza, don’t be wet.” Lilian strolled after Blazer, her hands in her gilet pockets, towards the back of the cathedral room.

“The hell did you just call me?”

Lilian shot a pouty look over her shoulder. “Don’t be soppy,” she said. Her voice was so nasal. So superior. Liza’s heart was pounding in her chest with hatred and it was being misdirected towards the annoying girl in front of her.

“Don’t fucking call me names; I saved your life,” she growled, dangerously close to seeing red. What was he doing here? What did he want?

Why was he not groveling, sobbing at her feet? He had shot her. He had tried to kill her. People used to hang for less.

“And I saved yours,” Lilian snapped back, not missing a beat. “Come on, let’s figure this out. No point in moping over here.”

She could talk about moping now? One minute of lucidity and now she was an expert in maturity? Liza didn’t want to stay in the church by herself, alone with Jesus and the rhythmic pounding of the children of hell outside the double doors, but she didn’t want to follow Blazer behind that red velvet curtain either.

“Liza, your friends are really worried about you,” Blazer called, dipping behind the curtain. Lilian followed closely, and giggled at the sight of whatever it was behind the red sheet. Liza took tentative steps.

“Wow, you collected all this?” Lilian squealed, unseen, to Blazer. Her voice sounded different from anything Liza had heard out of her up until then.

He laughed modestly. “Not just me,” he said.

“You look like you wouldn’t struggle much to do it yourself,” she said. And Liza realised what it was in her voice. She was flirting. Hesitantly she cleared the gap and threaded the curtain between her fingers, pulling it to one side. Blazer stood in the anteroom that led to the cathedral vestry, his jacket bunched up and his hands shoved in his pockets, a lazy smile on his face. Around them were supplies. Food. Water. Blankets.

Flirting? With him? Sure, he was conventionally handsome. He looked strong, and his smile was charming. Even Liza had been sucked in for a minute; had thought that maybe it would be nice to be friends, or at the very least allies.

And then he had struck.

She shook her head to banish the thoughts. He was a piece of shit. She would never trust him. No matter what.

Knife gripped in her hand, her hair wild and messy, half in a ponytail, and dirt and blood smeared across her clothes and face, Liza stepped through the threshold, under the cool stroke of velvet, and into the anteroom, and then through to the vestry. It was full to bursting.

“Liza.”

“Liza!”

“Oh my god.”

Before she had readjusted to the feel of this new room — a touch less I died for your sins and more tea and biscuits — she found herself wrapped up tight in Tucker’s arms, the smell of earth and the metallic tang of blood filling her nose.

Over his shoulder she smiled warmly at Yana and Celia who hovered around them, ready to gather her into their arms as well. As well as them, there were at least twenty other people, craning their necks from squashy, throw-covered couches or cushions and beanbags on the floor. The room was filled with hangers, cupboards, a teakettle, mirrors.

“Oh, god,” Tucker said again into her hair. Her horribly dirty, lank, greasy hair. She pulled away and shot him a smile. “Shit. Are you hurt?” He misinterpreted her unwillingness to cling to him, but she ran with it.

“Yes,” she said, tugging up the hem of her stupid shirt and indicating to the bandages stained with fresh red blood. “He shot me.” She nodded in Blazer’s direction.

Tucker rounded on him. “You what?”

Blazer raised his hands again, and Liza crossed her arms across her chest.

“What do you want to say to explain yourself in front of all these people?” she asked. “You kicked me out of a car I hotwired to save your life—”

“Shit, that’s cool,” she heard Tucker interject from the sidelines.

“—you shot me point blank and shoved me onto the road, in the wake of a hundred zombies! You stole all my weapons. You left me for dead. You’re scum.” She was working herself up, feeling her face flush bright red as she spoke.

Blazer had the decency to lower his gaze and look truly embarrassed.

“You said all that stuff. You said … we’re going to die without ammunition, supplies, weapons. There are no other weapons, and, well, I’m useless. I’m shit. The only strength I have is taking what I want. I’ll freely admit that.” He shrugged, a lazy rolling motion, and he allowed the corner of his mouth to curl upwards, where it seemed to belong. “But I came back for you, didn’t I? I just saved your life, so … I guess we’re even.”

Liza lifted her knife with a guttural growl and Tucker and Celia pulled on an arm each, forcing her backwards again.

“I wouldn’t have been in that position if you hadn’t tried to kill me!” she yelled. “I would have had guns. I would have been here already. Fuck you. How dare you?”

“Sshh, shh, baby, it’s—” Tucker began.

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“Don’t you fucking call me baby!” she interrupted, rounding on him. She had far more to say, but … that was for another time. She bit her lip, her breathing heavy, her face red. She turned to the others. “He’s not trustworthy. I say we kick him out. Do to him what he did to me. He can make his own way in this world.”

She was addressing every survivor present in this claustrophobic vestry. Most of them blinked silently at her, huddling around mugs of tea, glancing at each other, whispering.

“Liza, Blazer has only been here since last night but he’s done so much for us already,” Yana said softly, carefully. “He brought us so many supplies. He helped us with … a few things. Some gross things. He has done a lot for us, in just twelve hours, I don’t think…” She bit her lip, looking away. No one spoke up to argue with her.

“He needs to go, he’s…” She had lost steam almost as quickly as she had gained it. Tucker was staring at her with concern on his features. Yana and Celia mirrored his expression, glancing at each other.

Nobody was looking at Blazer.

“Fine,” she said, folding her arms. “But as long as he’s here, don’t turn your back to him.” She looked around, at everyone’s awkward averted gazes. “And he should be … punished. Somehow. Right? Attempted murder.”

“We’ve all done stupid, awful things and it’s only day two,” Blazer said. “I feel sick about what happened, but you … you did kill people.”

“Liza?” Tucker asked.

She looked from Blazer to Tucker and her mouth fell open. “They tried to kill me first.”

“You wanted to save your own life,” Blazer said. “And I wanted to save mine. I felt terrible. I immediately came here, added your supplies to the cache, I … we … killed so many things together, with your supplies. There were so many here. People came here to pray and they were all changed.” He swept his hand over his mouth. “We piled them high out back and we burned them. The smell...” He shook his head, and Liza saw the others nodding and mumbling behind him and she felt sick. They had really been through that much together in such a short time?

Did she really have zero allies?

“Maybe I should have just gone straight to London,” she said dully, and moved to sit on a wooden chair by the curtain.

“Don’t be like that, Liza,” Yana said, her voice strangely comforting, coming to kneel in front of her. “You’re forgetting that Blazer is…” She lowered her voice so that only Liza could hear, in theory. “...that he knows. He knew that you just needed to wrap a bandage around yourself and you’d be fine. He panicked. He did a really, really shitty thing. But he came straight here because he knew you’d survive and arrive soon. He wanted to straighten it out, and make it up to you. What else can he do?”

Liza straightened up and looked at him. “He can leave, unarmed with a bullet in his gut, and wander the streets for twelve hours.”

“She was with me,” Lilian instantly said at that, looking very pleased with herself. “I pulled out the bullet. I looked after her.”

“Thanks, Lilian,” Liza said, feeling bitterness deep inside her gut.

Why was he getting away with this?

“We can’t just let people die. Blazer is strong,” Yana said, standing up. “We won’t give him access to any weapons until he proves he is trustworthy. We’ll keep an eye on him.” She looked over at him for a few seconds. He looked back.

“Is there something going on between you two? Is that it?” Liza asked.

Yana narrowed her pretty eyes. “No.”

Liza got back to her feet and looked around. The dirty faces of the first wave survivors looked back at her. In a year, how many would be left? She saw the expression on every single one of their faces. They were scared. Truly, primally, out-of-their-minds scared. And Blazer was by far the biggest, physically the strongest, the most confident of all of them. She understood. She hated it; it made her sick, but she understood.

Most of them didn’t know her. From what he had just said it sounded as though he had made an executive decision to save his own life at the cost of hers, and they could understand that. Then they had been rescued by him over here. He had burned bodies with them. He had comforted them. She was nothing to them.

“I get it, Liza,” Celia said, moving to her side while the others continued to speak amongst themselves, a low rumble that filled the entire vestry. The smaller girl pushed her glasses up her nose. “We’ll keep an eye on him.”

Liza relaxed, visibly. “Thank you,” she said.

“You have to realise, though, that you claim he shot you point blank hours ago, but to them you are at the peak of health. If we didn’t know better, it would sound like you were…”

“Lying,” Liza finished slowly.

“We aren’t gonna let anything happen to you,” Celia said. “It’s just the others. Blazer—” She winced physically at having to say his nickname, which made Liza smile despite herself. “—he’s done so much for them, already, and I think they look up to him as the leader of this group.”

Liza’s smile quickly fell into a scowl. “If anyone is qualified to—”

“I agree,” Celia said quickly. “It’s not official, or anything, but if it ever came to a vote, you know that we all would…” She trailed off; it didn’t need to be said.

“I’m glad someone is on my side.”

Celia paused. “It shouldn’t be about sides, it should be us against them. We can’t turn on each other. Panic does crazy things to people.” Her eyes lowered. “Crazy things. We’ve all been acting differently for the last twenty-four hours. That’s why they’re willing to ignore it.”

“Different how?” Liza asked carefully; it seemed like there was something specific Celia wasn’t telling her, but she shook her head quickly.

“Things … it doesn’t matter.” Celia sighed. “It’s been a really long twelve hours; most of us haven’t really even slept. We cleared out the church and the courtyard. You missed all of it. But it’s finally safe and secure here. No way are they getting in through that gate.”

There was a poorly timed thump that Liza and Celia could hear even from the other end of the church from the double doors. A dozen zombies were heaving at the entrance with all the strength of the starving.

Liza gently cleared her throat. “Where might the guns be, please?” she said.

Celia straightened up and pointed to the back of the vestry, at a crate. Liza started towards it, and then paused, furrowing her brow at the sight of it.

A wooden crate, so out of place in a cathedral. On the side was a spraypainted biohazard symbol. Just like that one in the field. Had someone lugged it all the way down here and inside?

Celia spoke as if reading her thoughts. “We found it in here. Only we did — with the headsets on. When we opened it, everyone else saw it, as if it had always been there.” At Liza’s side, she crossed her arms and chewed her lip. “It was full of guns, and ammo.”

“Great,” Liza said, raising her eyebrows high. “If this one is here, I bet there are more. All over the place.” Her mouth twisted into a smile; this was the best news she had heard in a long time. “This is fantastic. We just have to find them often enough to stay stocked up. And we’re the only ones who can?”

Celia nodded. “Until it was opened, and then the others could interact with everything inside. It’s a huge advantage for us.”

“Keep the headsets safe,” Liza reminded her. She still had a couple of spares … or Blazer did. Wherever he had put her pack. Anger gripped at her once again.

She turned back to the vestry and saw him chatting and laughing at the other end of the room, patting the back of some other men. He had made friends quickly. He was charming. He was handsome. That got people’s guards down. It had hers down too. But now she knew.

Lilian was there too, smiling up at him. Noticing the heat of Liza’s glare on the side of her face, the redheaded girl turned to her and frowned.

“Why don’t you stop being a spoilsport, Liza, and sit down and have some food?” She propped her hands up on her generous hips. “Or have a nice chat with these people. You wanted to find them, after all, didn’t you?”

Liza’s heartbeat picked up again. She did not like feeling like she was being told off by someone her own age. Or anyone. Especially when she knew she was in the right.

“We need to be doing something about all of this,” Liza said low, gesturing all around them and at nothing in particular. “We can’t sit still anymore. We lost that luxury while everyone around us lost their lives. I think we got the fairer deal.”

Lilian pinched her features together in the most incredibly argumentative way, without even saying anything, but Blazer cut in.

“She’s right. Let’s talk about what we want to be doing next. For survival.” He gave her a sheepish half smile and she pretended she hadn’t seen him.

“We need to fortify wherever we decide to stay,” Liza said. “During that time we will locate, strengthen and fix up vehicles. Enough to take the lot of us down to London. Coaches. Buses. Those are our best options.”

“Liza is very resourceful about things like that,” Blazer added quickly, loud enough for the whole group to hear. A thump of anger hit her but she ignored it.

“We’ll split into groups.” She thought about it for a few moments. The double doors gave another thump across the echoing church and one young survivor jumped and squealed. “Some will stay, some will go and locate vehicles. Everyone looks out for each other.”

She looked around to the group of survivors, waiting for a positive response. There was a silence that lasted a beat too long, and her face fell.

“Who put you in charge?” a dude asked, with the exact same hairstyle that Blazer had.

They tended to stick together.

“Yeah,” a few others agreed, eyeing her up and down.

“She just walks in and takes over,” she heard someone mutter.

“Uppity wench,” a guy snorted in the corner. She shot him a glare and he pretended he hadn’t been the one speaking, averting his gaze.

“Accused Blaze of killing her and she’s completely fine,” someone else hissed, not even saying Blazer’s stupid nickname correctly.

“He should be the leader.”

“Blazer should be the leader.”

“Yeah!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” a defending voice sounded out. “Hold on a minute!” Liza covered her face in her hands. The only one speaking out against them … was Blazer himself. “She’s capable. She’s a fast thinker. She knows what she’s doing.” A beat. “She’s a woman and I can honestly say I trust her to be by my side in a fight. Now, that’s saying something.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits so fast it gave her double vision.

Blazer turned on her with a smile and she saw that crooked canine again.

I hate you.

I hate you, I hate you.

“I think we should do Liza’s plan because it sounds smart,” he said, reaching up and scratching the back of his head. “What else is there to do?”

“Tend to the sick,” a girl snapped, standing up and folding her arms. “Rest, relax, now that we’re finally safe. Most importantly — we need to be sticking together. Not off tramping about with Little Miss fucking Sunshine to go shopping for pretty cars.”

Well, shit. Liza hadn’t been fully told off like that in a pretty long time. Despite the situation, she found the corner of her lips twitching upwards.

“What’s your name?” she asked the girl. Though she was exhausted, grey, pale and dirty, her thick flicked eyeliner hadn’t been smudged even an iota, and her choppy black bob looked tousled on purpose, not by battling for her life.

The girl looked at her stonily for a few seconds longer than was polite. “Denslow.”

“Well, Denslow,” Liza said, “I understand your points, but I think you’re wrong. Sticking together in a group this big is even more dangerous than being alone right now. We don’t know how vulnerable we are here. If one person gets infected, it ripples outwards. This isn’t a ghost movie, or a slasher movie. This is a virus movie.”

“This isn’t a fucking movie at all, this is our lives!” Denslow shouted. Liza pulled in a deep breath, determined not to say anything she regretted.

“Vote,” she said.

“Vote,” Blazer confirmed, which she hated. “Hands up to split into groups and get shit done.”

“Fortification, fortification, fortification,” Tucker called out, shoving his fist into the air.

“I’m with the survivalist,” Yana said pointedly, daintily lifting a finger to the air too.

“Wouldn’t trust anyone else here with my life,” Celia said, lifting her arm up as high as it would go — a practised motion from all her years as the class nerd. In every class she was in.

“Liza, all the way,” James added, doubled over, out of breath. “Bitch can make a fire without a fuggin’ lighter.”

“Thank you, J—” Liza began, tossing a look at the doorway to the rest of the cathedral, and then letting out a shriek of surprise as she ran to him. He fell to his knees, sweat positively pouring from his forehead. “What happened? How did you … how long have you been here?”

The big dude wiped his brow with his filthy, bloodied sleeve, and let out a shuddering breath of pure exertion. “There’s an open way in. A back way. They’re following me. A breach.”

He looked up at Liza. “I am so glad you’re here,” he gasped. She smiled at him, gesturing rapidly for some water. “Give ‘em hell.”

He looked like shit. No food, no water, no rest, for twenty-four hours; that was Liza’s guess. His normally flushed caramel skin was a pasty grey.

And, too heavy for her to support on her own while everyone else hovered, mouths agape with concern, James nodded forward, and allowed himself to pass out onto the floor.

There was a silence, and then, “Breach!” one of the occupants of the tiny room screamed, and then everything went to hell.