Zombie Ocean (Book 2): The Lost Read online

  ZOMBIE OCEAN

  The Last (Book 1)

  The Lost (Book 2)

  Michael John Grist's books are on Amazon.

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  CONTENTS

  ALICE

  1. DADDY

  2. THE HATTER

  3. TIDES

  4. OCEAN

  WONDERLAND

  5. CHEF & WAITRESS

  6. LITTLE HATTERS

  7. YELLOW PIE

  8. HOT DOGS

  9. LINT & COBBLES

  10. FAMILY

  LOOKING GLASS

  11. 10 YEARS LATER

  12. T4

  13. RAVI & AMO

  INTERLUDE 1

  ODYSSEY

  14. RAGNAROK IV

  15. TEACUP STORM

  16. 5 YEARS OLD

  17. HAWAII

  INTERLUDE 2

  18. MOUNT

  19. JAPAN

  WEST

  20. CHINA, MONGOLIA

  INTERLUDE 3

  21. JABBERWOCK

  22. IMPOSSIBLE THINGS

  23. CAIRNS

  24. SLEEPER CELL

  25. CERULEAN

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  EXTRAS

  Mr. Ruins (excerpt)

  ALICE

  1. DADDY

  Seven hours before the zombie apocalypse took away everything she ever knew, five-year old Anna lay in bed listening to her father read Alice through the Looking Glass.

  "When I was your age," he said in the high voice he used for the Red Queen, "I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

  Wrapped up in the tight covers, Anna listened to the words intently. Her Daddy had a cozy brown voice that always kept her calm, and this was one of the few stories she could hear without the hurt becoming too much. It helped that her small bedroom was dark, and the covers were dark, and her Daddy's pajamas were dark; all except the yellow lightning bolt on his back, but she was used to that.

  Darkness helped. Quiet helped. Impossible things didn't, but if she couldn't even enjoy imagining those, what did she have left?

  "Tell me an impossible thing, Daddy," she said.

  He smiled down at her. He had a dark and stubbly face, lit by the low orange light from the side-table lamp. She knew he wasn't all that old, but there was gray in his dark beard, twinkling like Christmas snowflakes. His brown eyes were warm and full.

  "I could quote just about anything in this book, I should think," he said. "Card-men? Bread and butterflies? The Jabberwock?"

  Anna smiled and closed her eyes. Her Daddy was another thing that didn't hurt her head at all. After the coma the doctors said that anything she already knew would be all right, and wouldn't make her head hurt. But the only things she could really remember from that time were Alice, her Daddy, and a vague sense of her mother.

  Her mother had gone though. Only her Daddy had stayed.

  "What about ham-fly?" she asked. "Or potato-bird?"

  The hurt kicked in, a persistent throb that quickly spread through her head.

  "Alright button," her father said softly. "I think that's enough."

  She opened her eyes. "Tell me one. Just one then I'll go to sleep."

  He sighed. "You'll be up all night, Anna."

  "I won't I promise, just one."

  Her father frowned, and tapped her nose gently. "One, all right. Let's make it good." He leaned back and thought for a little while.

  This wait was delicious. Most nights it was one of their routines: to make up something new, something to dream about, something to chew and digest and make herself stronger.

  "OK," he said at last, "I've got it. In the rainforests of Peru, some of the women wear birds instead of clothes. Did you know that?" His eyes twinkled. "They pleat the feathers together into beautiful patterns. Why?"

  Anna screwed up her nose. That idea hurt her head sharply, like a lump of freezing snow behind her face. It was new and vivid. "Not just for fashion?"

  Her Daddy chuckled. "Probably for fashion, ladies do like fashion don't they, but what else?"

  The hurt thumped. She screwed her tongue up in her mouth. "So they can fly into the trees and get coconuts?"

  "Good guess. Yes. They fly up for coconuts, then fly up higher and plant the coconut seeds in the tops of the other trees. Why?"

  Her head banged and her eyes throbbed. "To make an arch? A rainbow out of trees. So they hang down on vines like a canary in a cage? So they become birds."

  "They become birds by dressing up in birds, exactly. Like the caterpillar in his chrysalis. It's what makes them happy."

  Anna sighed, part in satisfaction, part with the hurt. Her father stroked her forehead.

  "You're getting hot Anna. That's enough now."

  It was enough. Too much, probably. She'd have to lie silently and still for hours now before sleep would come, thinking through Alice's familiar adventures to clear these new images from her head. But that was OK. She'd be able to add them in to her collection soon, as their newness faded.

  "All right," she said, narrowing her eyes to hurt-reducing slits. "But can we draw the bird ladies tomorrow?"

  He stroked her face softly. "We certainly can."

  Their drawings were pinned up around the room, as evidence of the adventures they'd been on together. The bird ladies would fit in perfectly next to the cucumber-men that lived on the ice volcano. It was too dark to see them now, but knowing they were out there stuck to the plain black walls made her feel good, like friends hovering in the darkness.

  "Good night then, sweetie," her father said, and tucked her covers tighter around her.

  She peeked up at him through slitted eyelashes. "Can I please see the Hatter? Just for a second."

  He sighed and paused in mid-rise. "I don't know, sweetheart. He's tired from his injection. You're tired."

  "Just for half a second? It's part of our routine."

  He gave a bemused expression, wrinkling his eyebrows like he couldn't believe this child was his. "It is routine," he admitted, "that's true."

  "Just a quarter of a second. I want to pat his head."

  "You'll be up all night. But all right, a quick pat on the head and that's all."

  He eased himself up carefully and left the bedroom. Anna steeled herself. The Hatter was the newest addition to their family, and the hardest thing for her to be around, but still she loved him. He was so small and helpless. It felt nice that she might be able to protect him, like her Daddy protected her.

  Her father came back holding the Hatter. He was small and black, a baby Dalmatian with eyes that could still barely see. He made a soft mewling sound as her Daddy laid him down on the sheets by her face.

  He was beautiful. Just the smell of him, all fur and milk and laundry-fresh from his new basket, made her head thump harder. The way his little head quivered and his ears shifted angles enchanted her, while the hurt grew.

  This was something to fight for.

  "Can I?" she asked.

  Her Daddy nodded. He helped her ease her slim pale tan arm out of the tight covers, and rest it lightly on the Hatter's downy head. He yelped. Anna melted and ached inside.

  "Right here," her Daddy said, pointing at a small white bandage pasted on the Hatter's back, between his tiny shoulder blades. "The doctor made the injection here, so we can never lose him."

  "A chip," Anna said, pushing hard now against the icy wall of hurt. "But not a potato chip."

  Her Daddy smiled and tickled the Hatter's round little belly. "A chip, that's right. He could go anywhere in the world and we'd find him. He'd find us
, too. He'll protect us both, Anna, when he's big and strong."

  Anna rubbed the Hatter's ears. He leaned into her hand sleepily. She loved him so much already. She thought about asking if he could stay in the room tonight, but she knew she'd never sleep.

  Instead she carefully retracted her arm, and her Daddy helped her slide it back into the covers. "Thank you," she said quietly.

  "You're welcome, angel. Now sleep well."

  He picked up the Hatter. He tucked her in. He kissed her forehead gently, stroked her hair, then clicked off the dim lamp and eased quietly out of the room.

  Darkness surrounded her.

  She lay very still and pushed back at the hurt. This was the final routine that ended every day; trying to claim for herself whatever strange new ideas they'd come up with. The birdwomen took a long time to swallow down, and they hurt, though she had techniques that helped: most of them involved telling herself variations on Alice's adventures.

  She looked up at the glowing clouds on the ceiling. These were left over from before, so they were OK, but so much else had gone. Her TV was a dim memory; her dolls, once scattered round the room ready for the next tea party, were all tucked away in boxes. She never went outside. She hardly ever left the room. Even looking at the pictures in the Alice books was too much. The most she could handle were the stories themselves, spoken in her Daddy's cozy brown voice.

  At last she fell asleep.

  When she woke six hours later her Daddy was standing over her, lit only by the glowing white of his eyes.

  "Daddy?" she whispered.

  He lunged toward her. His right hand glanced off her forehead and his left caught in her pillow, while his white-eyed face plunged closer like a nightmarish worm.

  Anna screamed.

  His forehead thunked off hers and stars popped across her vision. Instinctively she recoiled, ducking her head into the covers and burrowing deeper. The covers were so tight she could scarcely breathe, but now he was slapping at the pillows so she scrunched herself up at the bottom like Alice in a giant's pocket.

  She gasped in hot stifling breaths. It was so dark and she felt dizzy, then his hand slapped hard at her back from above and she shrieked, "Daddy stop it!" but the words were muffled by the covers.

  The bed rocked as his weight flopped onto it. Anna instinctively froze.

  Silence thumped in the dark like the hurt. She strained to hear above her own gaspy breathing.

  "Daddy?" she whispered.

  The bed jolted and something snaked across her shoulder. His arm nudged her back through the blankets, and then came a horrible soft clicking sound, matched by a tightening of the blankets. The terror redoubled as she realized what it was: his teeth biting at the sheets.

  She screamed and started burrowing through the sheets to the side. Her foot found the mattress edge and she pushed at the sheets as hard as she could. They untucked a little. She squirmed harder, using muscles she hadn't used for a year, until her toes popped through into the cooler air of the room.

  Her father pressed harder and so did Anna, widening the hole until she could pour herself through it like hot tea: her foot and leg went first, the other leg followed, then her hips and the rest of her body tumbled through and slumped awkwardly onto the carpet.

  She lay for a second panting in the cool air. Clouds glowed above in an eerie white light. It was a dream; it had to be a dream.

  Her Daddy's face popped over the edge of the bed like a horrible jack-in-the-box. She froze. It was her Daddy but not her Daddy; the black centers of his eyes were gone, covered over with shining white like Humpty's cracked eggshells. His dark skin had gone gray and his breath sucked in and out with loud raspy wheezes.

  He reached down for her and she yelped, then unfroze and rolled under the bed. In four dizzy revolutions she cleared the underside, just as he tumbled to the floor with a thump. She stared in disbelief as he got on his belly and started crawling toward her. It was tighter for him and he came on slow, but he didn't stop.

  For the first time since the coma she stood up. It felt incredibly high up, like Alice after biting the cake. The dark room spun and her frail legs wobbled below. She barely remembered how to walk, and she didn't have a clue what to do. Most of all she wanted to call for her Daddy, but he was right here chasing her, and-

  CRUNCH

  A horrible sound came from below, shaking the house and making her jump. Another followed then another, and her heart skipped a beat with each one.

  THUMP THUMP

  More hit. Her Daddy was still well under the bed so she chanced a trip to the window. She hobbled over on the scratchy carpet to the window and caught her balance on the wall. The black velvet curtains were tacked to the frame, protecting her day and night from the light of the outside world. Now she slipped her hand underneath the fabric and tore it away.

  Outside it was night still, and the road was filled with people.

  They were everywhere, hundreds of them in pajamas and sweatpants. They all had the same strange gray skin and the same glowing white eyes, and all of them were trudging in the same direction down the road, like a river flowing to the ocean.

  Then they stopped. Their heads turned as one, like flowers bending in the wind, and their glowing white eyes settled on her.

  Her breath stopped.

  They charged.

  CRUNCH THUMP THUMP

  They hit the house and glass shattered, the floor and wall shook, and Anna jerked away from the window to smack up against her Daddy.

  "Aaah!" she screamed.

  His hand came up to scrape her face and she ducked and staggered round him, running jerkily back to the bed. If she could just get back under the covers and close her eyes then this horrible dream would go away, she knew it. She started to climb up the mattress but her Daddy stopped her with a hand on her back.

  She screamed again. He pressed closer trapping her against the bed frame so she couldn't move at all. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  "Stop it Daddy!" she wailed. "I don't like this game." He pressed closer still and his gray face with its white eyes loomed in and she thought she was going to die.

  Then the Hatter barked from the other room.

  She barely heard the weak sound of his bark over the crashing of people-waves outside, but her Daddy did. He stopped advancing at once and went very still. Anna went very still too, not even daring to breathe.

  The Hatter barked again, more of a yelp than a real bark, and now her Daddy moved sharply away. He went through the bedroom door roughly, banging his shoulder off the frame.

  Anna let out a quiet sob. The Hatter barked again and her Daddy was stalking now outside in the hall. He'd saved her, but now who would save him? She was small but the Hatter was much smaller. She'd made a promise to protect him.

  She got up and started for the door, almost tripping over her big ankles. She could hardly run; her body wasn't used to fast movement at all.

  "Wait!" she called over the crashing sound.

  It was dark and she stubbed her toe on the edge of the bedroom door. The corridor outside was a dark foreign territory, a place she hadn't seen for months, half-remembered from an old dream.

  The dim light of her Daddy's eyes receded down the hall.

  "Wait Daddy."

  He turned into his bedroom. Anna bounced along the walls after him, calling all the time. Her legs were not used to this, her balance was weak, but the Hatter needed her and this was her one job. She reached the doorway gasping, exhausted from the exertion, to find her father holding the Hatter up before him in both hands.

  "Here he is sweetie," her Daddy would have said, "come pet him, I'm so proud that you got out of bed."

  But this was not her Daddy, and he didn't say any of that. Instead he lifted the struggling puppy to his face, opened his mouth, and bit down hard into the Hatter's soft and furry back.

  2. THE HATTER

  She'd begged her father for a dog for months.

  "I'll be so good, I promise,
" she'd told him, "I won't pull his little ringlet tail or play the drums on his head or anything."

  Her father had laughed, all chocolate brown in the comfy dark. "Pigs have ringlet tails, honey, not dogs."

  "I know Daddy," she'd urged, "I know that, that's my whole point."

  "I don't know about the drumming though."

  "But I won't drum, don't you see? I won't!"

  He laughed and stroked her hair. "Anna, you are a silly thing. I see your mother in you, you know. She was playful."

  She never answered when he said things like this. This was the sadness, which loomed over him like the hurt loomed over her. This was the reason she wanted a dog so much; her mission, just as his mission was to help her get well. They would get well together.

  "He'll hardly make a sound, I promise, and he'll keep us company, and when he's big enough I'll ride him around the room like a knight."

  He raised an eyebrow. "We'd have to get you a saddle."

  "I'll have a beautiful saddle!" she crowed, though of course quietly. "It can be leather or velvet or tomato-skin, I don't care. Just a dog Daddy, it would be wonderful. We can take walks and if I'm tired you can go out in the park with him, in the fresh air."

  He popped his finger on then off her nose, like pushing a button. "I know what you're doing, sweetie. I get it."

  "What am I doing?"

  "I know you worry too. You want me to go out more."

  She looked at him blankly. Of course this was true, but it felt very important he not know this, or she not admit it. All day every day he lived by her side. He had nothing else. After her Mommy had gone half the life had gone out of him too.

  Maybe a dog could fix that.

  "I just want a horse to ride around on. Daddy, can't I? It's only fair, you know. He'll be the best fun and the best friend to us both."

  He sighed. She could feel the thoughts turning in his head.

  "Maybe," he'd said.

  They ended up with the Hatter. They would both love him, and he would change and save their lives.