Blog of the Dead (Book 2): Life by Lisa Richardson

do you?’
    Sean ignored my comment. ‘You can’t stop me from coming back here … with my hammer … at night …’ He inched towards me as he spoke.
    Misfit dived between us. ‘Back off, arsehole!’ he said to Sean.
    Sean smirked. ‘Well, fucking help me look then so we can all get what we want. Any idea which way, Ray Mears ?’ he asked Misfit. Misfit rolled his eyes and nodded his head to the left of the tree.
    ‘Looks like the tree was snapped by someone travelling from the right hand side, if you look at the pattern of the break. So my guess is whoever it was carried on in that direction, heading to the left,’ said Misfit. I couldn’t help smiling at him. I wouldn’t have worked that out. I would’ve answered Sean’s question with a shrug of my shoulders and an ‘ I dunno ’.
    We walked further until we reached the wood where Misfit had been attacked, following the occasional bloody smear on tree trunks and snapped branches and stopping to kill the zombies we came across. I noticed Sean’s pace had slowed, his limp increasingly evident. That and the way he hugged his stomach with his left arm, and the grimace on his face told me he was in pain. But he pressed on, not complaining once. Sister or no sister, something was down here and that something drove him on.
    We came out to the bridge that crossed the train track. It led us to the woods on the other side of the Warren. Misfit saw no sign that anyone had been there recently, but we followed the track, worn by many hikers, to some steps carved into the dirt, and reinforced by horizontal wooden planks. We climbed the steps going left, then right, then left again as they zig-zagged up, getting steeper the higher up the cliff we got. Sweat trickled down my back, even in the December chill. By the time I reached the top, I had to pause to get my breath.
    I found myself standing in front of a small, white painted, boxy café, Cliff Top Cafe written in blue over the top of the glass double doors, one of which stood open a little way. I guessed we were in Capel Le Ferne, the village on the cliffs above Folkestone.
    I couldn’t make anything out inside the gloomy interior. In front of the café was a small tarmacked seating area with wooden picnic tables. I waited with Misfit until Sean caught up with us. Like me, he was sweating, and pain deepened the lines on his face.
    Sean sidled up to me and did his best to steady himself, leaning against the railings at the top of the steps. ‘I’ll go and check it out,’ he said, forcing himself away from the railings and taking his weight on his good leg. ‘You two stay here in case any zombies show up. We wouldn’t want to get trapped inside. I won’t be long.’ Sean saw that I opened my mouth to speak. ‘If she’s in there, she’ll be scared. Best I go in alone,’ he said, cutting me off. ‘And if she is in there, I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave us alone. We’ll find our own way out of here. You won’t see us again.’
    ‘OK. Fair enough,’ I said. Sean nodded once and I watched him limp towards the café.
    Now that we had been standing still, the frosty air crept into my bones and I wrapped Misfit’s biker jacket around myself, just as Sean slipped through the door and disappeared from my sight. I stomped my feet on the hard ground, trying to get my circulation going. But it didn’t help. I had so little body fat left to protect me from the elements that the icy air may as well have been injected into my veins. Nothing but sitting beside a roaring fire with a hot drink could warm me.
    I heard a yell from inside the café, followed by a smashing sound. ‘Sean’s in trouble,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
    Misfit grabbed my arm as I moved towards the building, halting me. ‘Leave him,’ he said. ‘He’s nothing to us … nothing but trouble, I reckon.’
    ‘Misfit, I can’t,’ I said, pulling away from him and carrying on towards the café. Through a broken window, I could see