There was a shine to his eyes that was definitely off, suggesting this lunatic couldn't wait to spill his prisoner's blood. That, and the fact that he was also responsible for mass murder himself, by shutting out half the town when the barriers had gone up, and it seemed of no relevance to him as he stated his opinion. Joy didn't know if his prisoner was responsible for the virus or not, but clearly, her days were numbered if she didn't think fast...

  “I think you should hold off on that until we establish the facts,” Joy told him, “I'm more than qualified to handle this, Brett.”

  He studied her for a moment, just sitting there, looking at her as he paused for thought.

  “What kind of copper were you?” he asked, “How high up?”

  Joy knew if she had a hope in hell of reaching his prisoner and finding out the truth of the matter, she had to lie through her teeth. So she decided not to say she was an ordinary copper who lurked down the lane in her squad car to catch speeding drivers in her tiny village. She told him something else entirely.

  “I was a high ranking detective, Scotland Yard,” she replied, “And I can't tell you more. I don't know how much official documentation will still exist on file when computers are up and running again, but I can't talk about the cases I've handled. Far too sensitive. Top secret.”

  Brett nodded, falling for her convincing act right away.

  “That's perfect,” he told her, “You'll be able to interrogate my prisoner?”

  “Take me to her,” she said, “I'll get the truth for you, Brett.”

  As he rose from his seat and she got up too, he smiled warmly.

  “Thank you so much, Joy!”

  Then they left the room, heading for the front door as Joy felt her stomach turn over as she realised she was about to go to the home of a dangerous individual who was planning on killing the woman he held captive whether she talked, or not. As they left the house together Joy was wrapped in thoughts of what to do to get through this situation, find the truth and hopefully avoid another murder by Brett Norton - if there was a way to do it, and she would be doing all of this without a gun, because to bring a weapon with her would have raised suspicion. She truly felt out of her depth now...

  On the beach, Alex had been expecting the usual morning shift, talking with the guys, watching the water, seeing nothing amiss and standing around until his shift ended doing little but catching the rays as he stood there with his gun holstered as the sea breeze ruffled his hair. And then there was a shout, and as the guy on watch further up the beach shouted again, he turned away from his post and ran along the sand, where in the distance, a guard was pointing down at something by the rocks.

  As Alex got closer, the tide was lapping at the sand far off, and gulls dipped in a blue sky as the heat of the day began to grow with the climb of the sun. The guard on watch was no older than twenty, his face was pale and he was wiping vomit from his mouth.

  “What the actual fuck is it?” was all he could say, then he turned away and coughed, taking steps closer to the calm waters as he breathed in clean salt air to banish the stench that had churned up his guts.

  “Wow...” Alex muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he looked down at a sight he had never seen before:

  It was a dead zombie, it had collapsed, rotted legs folding in as the body had snapped mid section and its dead eyes stared up, its mouth was open and a curious crab was in the process of crawling out. It lay there in a heap, fallen where it had staggered from the sea, then simply... died? Oddly, its belly was split open, and the cavity within was empty. No guts inside? Alex took a step back, keen to avoid the rising stench of rotted zombie. He looked to the waters edge: There were definite tracks left in the sand where the creature had staggered to shore, and it had got as far as the rocks. And then, it had simply fallen dead, its mouth was filled with human teeth, this would have been one of the so called slowies... The sand around the body was stained with dark, dead blood where the cavity had split. Flies buzzed round it, and in and out of the open space within. Alex looked beside the bloody sand, seeing small, odd tracks that dotted the beach and stopped at the rocks, as he wondered if maybe an animal of some kind had got down here while the patrols were changing shifts, and been in the right place at the right time to eat the guts from the zombie as it fell dead in the sand. The hollowing out of the body had not happened in the water - the split in the corpse was fresh. But there was not a trace of its insides anywhere...

  “Stay at your post,” Alex told the guy who was standing there leaning on his rifle as he tried not to puke again, “I'll send someone to clean this up. And I'll send word my watch needs to be covered - I have to report this find to Devan.”

  Then Alex headed for the steps that led to the sea wall, keen to report the odd remains, because there was something about it that just didn't make sense... What the hell had eaten it? In all his time surviving after the outbreak, Alex had seen a lot - but he had never seen any kind of animal, no matter how desperate, make a meal of the guts of a zombie...

  Chapter 6

  Joy followed Brett though the open front door of his smart home with a sea view, and as he closed the door behind him, he glanced to the armed guard who sat idle in the hallway.

  “This is Joy, she's a police detective. We require privacy. Stay down here at all times.”

  The guard nodded, then Joy followed Brett up the stairs to the upper floor of the house. He led her down a long carpeted hallway, then stopped at a locked door. Joy had seen how readily he had fallen for her lies, and now she guessed there was nothing to lose by upping the stakes, because a plan was taking shape - although if she found out this prisoner was responsible for the virus, what then, walk away? She had seen so much horror since the outbreak that even with her police instincts and her desire to try and do things the right way, she wasn't sure how to proceed. If this woman had been responsible for making a death virus that had done this to humanity, she knew she would not work in any way to save her. Everything hinged on whether or not she co operated, and what she learned from the truth...

  “Her name is Doctor Carla Reynolds, she's a scientist,” Brett said as he took a key from his pocket, “And she won't tell me anything apart from bullshit. When she's not lying, she gives me silence.”

  Joy decided now, she would play out the first part of her plan, just in case the rest, that had just fallen into place, was needed after all.. She placed her hand on his arm, meeting his gaze as she glanced to the stairs to check the guard was absent, then lowered her voice.

  “I shouldn't be telling you this,” she whispered as she reeled off a story and hoped he fell for it, “But it's relevant. We were looking into all kinds of shit going on at Marshcast, including an experiment with telepathy...”

  His eyes went wide.

  “Real telepathy? I used to use tricks in my act to fake it but I never believed it could be done for real!”

  “They tried it on a few test subjects, who all went insane. If she is one of them, she will know this is a trap if you linger up here and wait outside. Go back downstairs. They folded the mind reading experiments because they only worked at close range. Don't worry about me, I'll put a up a brick wall in my mind, just in case.”

  “Good thinking,” he whispered, then he placed the key in the door, “As soon as you're in, I'll close the door and walk away until you call me. I'll be downstairs.”

  Joy smiled as she patted his shoulder.

  “We make a great team, Brett!”

  He nodded in agreement then turned the key, unlocking the door, before hurrying away in the direction of the stairs. Joy gave the door a slow push as she listened to his footfalls as he went downstairs, then she went inside and closed the door behind her.

  Joy walked over to the woman who sat there on the floor, she was cuffed to the leg of a heavy table, her long blonde hair that fell past her shoulders was greasy with sweat, and she had shifted towards the wall, away from a patch of carpet that stank of piss.

  “Sorry,” she said as she raised her head, “He doesn't let me move about much. Sometimes he bans bathroom breaks too. Are you here to torture me?”

  Joy saw deep determination to survive set in the woman's gaze. She knelt down on the carpet in front of her, keeping her voice low.

  “It's like this, I'm new in town, used to be a copper. He thinks I was a high ranking detective who can get the truth out of you. Work with me and there might be a way out.”

  Carla looked at her in confusion.

  “I don't know you, this could be a trap!”

  “It's the only choice you have if you want to live,” Joy whispered, “Now tell me about Marshcast.”

  Carla leaned hard against the wall as she looked back at Joy, she took a deep breath and started to speak.

  “There never was a zombie virus! It was five years of combining agents slowly and carefully, it was dangerous, too – but it was never intended to harm anyone! That wasn't the aim of the work! The project was in its activation phase when the cadaver came back to life. And THEY knew that was the high risk time, and that's why those who wanted to sabotage the project let it out, to spread the virus! The virus was a side effect of the chrysalis phase!”

  Joy looked at her intently.

  “Chrysalis? Like some kind of cocoon? The zombies are cocoons? For what?”

  Carla looked to the door, then back at Joy.

  “I didn't work on every phase. My task was to deal with the observation of the cadaver during infusion stage, which initially took almost eighty percent of the duration of the project... But so many big businesses stood to lose out if we succeeded. That's where the raid on the lab came from, they wanted to let it loose when it was infectious and hostile and put a stop to the project. But it went further than that. The virus spread and it couldn't be contained.

  Just believe me, please! I'm telling you the truth!”

  “It was never intended as a zombie virus?”

  “No!” her voice became tearful, “And I'm not in Wickstall to plant a disease from Marshcast, or to harm anyone - I'm here for my son, his name is Archie, he's staying with my Auntie Carol,” she gave a sob, “He has birth defects. He was exposed to chemicals I worked with on the project, I fell pregnant accidentally. I couldn't tell anyone because of the project, it was top secret - so I had the baby and sent him to Carol and carried on working almost five years on the project! When it was over I was going back for him... I came to visit him when I could. Then the project was was sabotaged and the world went to hell. Now, I don't even know if he's still alive!”

  Tears ran down her face. Joy reached out and placed her hand gently on her shoulder.

  “Carla,” she said softly, “Archie is alive and well. Carol's been hiding him safely. A friend of mine met them both when Carol took him in after he had a fall. Archie is okay.”

  She gave another sob, this time out of sheer relief. Joy gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and kept her voice low as she said her name as Carla looked at her tearfully.

  “I'm going to get you out of here. I can make Brett let you go, just go along with every thing I say, okay?”

  She nodded, then Joy got up, went to the door and opened it and leaned out.

  “Brett,” she called out, “Get up here now, please!”

  As Brett hurried up the stairs, he called out to Joy.

  “Did she talk?”

  Joy stood in the open doorway, giving him a weary expression as he hurried down the hallway to join her.

  “I know her,” Joy stated.

  Brett looked in at Carla, who looked back at him and then down at the carpet.

  “What do you mean? How can you know her?”

  Joy gave a sigh as she shook her head.

  “She's Carla Reynolds. But she's not a scientist, Brett. I've personally met this lady some half a dozen times in my years as a senior officer... And in that time she's claimed to be responsible for serial killings, a bank robbery and even said she masterminded a massive fraud involving money worth billions. And it's all bollocks.”

  He looked Carla, then back at Joy in confusion.

  “What?”

  “She's what we call a serial confessor,” Joy said, “You wouldn't believe the time and resources we wasted on her - not to mention the cost! She's sick, Brett. She's no doubt off her meds because of the outbreak. And I'm not at all surprised she got the urge to say she worked at Marshcast. That's got to be the biggest confession ever. It's a compulsion, she can't help herself.”

  Brett was staring at her. Now she had spun her tale, and knowing his prejudices as she did, Joy was braced for a nasty remark about Carla's apparent mental health issue.

  “So she's a fucking loony?” he exclaimed.

  And there it was. Joy kept cool, maintaining her act.

  “You need to let her go, Brett. She will be just fine once she's back on her meds. I will keep her at the house under my supervision until River sorts out her medication, then she will be okay to settle here and no doubt make a great contribution to this town.”

  “She can do that if she's on her meds?” Brett asked.

  “Of course! Now give me the keys to the cuffs! There's no need to keep her here any longer.”

  Brett handed the keys over as Joy inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. She went over to Carla, unlocked the cuffs then helped her up as she struggled to stand on shaking legs.

  “This is your fault,” Brett said sharply to Carla, “You brought this on yourself, you fucking nutter!”

  Then he stepped back as Joy led Carla towards the stairs. Just before they went down, Joy glanced back.

  “By the way,” she said, “Don't stop by the house, please. As you kept her here against her will, you could risk triggering her all over again if she saw you before the meds kick in. She's going to need at least two weeks with River, on her meds, before she can be considered stable again. And if she ever comes to you and confesses to anything else, anything at all - you need to let River know so she can adjust her medication.”

  “Right...” Brett muttered, then he followed them down the stairs and past the guard and opened up the front door, closing it behind them as Joy supported the weakened woman as she leaned on her for support and made their way to the gate.

  Joy said nothing until the were away from the house and heading down the road that would eventually lead to home.

  “You're safe now.”

  “I just want to see Archie!” said Carla as she leaned against her, “I haven't seen him since last year, it was so hard to get here, I thought I wouldn't make it!” she gave another sob.

  There were many questions Joy wanted to ask about the real nature of the research at Marshcast, but right now, getting Carla back to the house to rest and recover from her ordeal was priority, everything else could wait.

  “Your son is fine,” she reminded her, “You can see him when you've rested.”

  Then she put an arm around her as the exhausted woman with welts around her wrists where the cuffs had bit deep leaned harder against her as they carried on walking. It was a long way back to the house but at least for Carla, the nightmare was over.

  As they stood together on the beach, Devan turned away from the now burning zombie as the fire took hold, burning up the remains of the corpse, ready for the incoming tide to wash it away. This was their means of disposal whenever they washed up, but usually, they had to shoot them first...

  “Thoughts?” said Alex as they stood close by the waters edge, looking to the sand as the smoke trailed up into the sky to be carried off on the breeze.

  Devan shook his head.

  “Never seen anything quite like that... And there were only one set of tracks from the sea?”

  “Yes, why?” asked Alex.

  “I was thinking, maybe two came in and one was wounded and the other ate its guts. But then there would have been tracks leading away from the zombie, and we don't have that. We just have those weird marks in the sand that go to the rocks and finish. I've checked around the rocks, there's nothing hiding. What ever did this finished its meal, left the sand, climbed over the rocks to the sea wall and went over the other side into the town... but it's quiet here, not many people come out this far so no one would have seen it leave.. I don't even know what those tracks are.”

  “I thought maybe a fox?” Alex suggested.

  Devan looked again at the prints left in the sand.

  “No, not a dog or a cat either...and one way.”

  Alex thought about it, looking from the burning remains to the rocks, where the sand was marked with tracks moving away from the zombie. Devan was right, there seemed to be no tracks approaching it.

  “There should be two sets, one coming down, and one going out.”

  “And all we have is evidence a zombie staggered to shore, and then something ate its guts and went off that way,” he said, indicating to the sea wall, “We should have two sets of tracks, unless it was on the rocks at the time the zombie washed in - but what would eat a zombie's insides?”

  Alex shrugged.

  “I can't think of anything that would do that.”

  “Neither can I,” said Devan as he looked out to sea, wondering what the hell had done this. It seemed that maybe they had more than just zombies to worry about these days...

  Sage had gone with Bess and Mickey to the fairground, where they stood around in the sunshine as the kids enjoyed the rides. At that moment, Angel and Sage were on a merry go round, and Angel was laughing like that bite to her arm was nothing at all. Poppy too seemed to be having fun, she had a smile on her face as the ride revolved and the wind blew back her hair.

  “It's so good to see the kids having fun, you can almost forget what the rest of the world's like out there,” Bess remarked, and Mickey nodded in agreement.

  Then as another ride a short distance away carried young kids around inside small colourful planes, there was a hiss as the hydraulics raised and lowered the planes as it turned.

 

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