The Falling Stars (The Vamps and One Direction Zombie Apocalypse)

Chapter 4- The Nameless Archer

Army base 1 welcomed us with opened arms. We fitted into their self appointed leadership system, fitting close to the bottom, but never minding or complaining. It was better that way. Brad and James were happier than I’d seen them in a long time, and within two days of constant human company they were almost acting back to normal! I still felt uneasy though. There was still something missing, leaving a gaping hole the size of a person. Tristan. I knew he was dead, or un-dead, but I still longed to see my friend again. The gaping hole left in our lives by his absence was simply filled with my guilt, and it was dragging me down past the natural human level, and eating me alive like one of those creatures.

I also found myself bizarrely fixated on the two un-named girls that roamed the army base, particularly one.

The nameless archer frequented the same places in an almost OCD like system. She would wake in the morning, 8:30am precisely, and stare out of the window. Her brown eyes fixed on a spot far in the distance, small hands knitted together although in prayer. Weapons were her priority though. Her arrows and bow were kept in an un-necessary black plastic bag beneath her bed, which she ever so carefully peeled the tape off at 9am, counting the arrows carefully and one by one. She stroked her fingers along the plastic and metal, running her thumb to the end and testing the ends were sharp.  If there were any less than 14, she would trudge down to the armoury moaning under her breath and collect more, before slinging them over her shoulder.

She would then acquire an extremely small breakfast off Emilie, who was in charge of rations, and go back to her room, where she shut the door and locked it. I never saw whatever secretive activity went on in there, as the door stayed locked until Emilie sent round Melody and Katrina to call us all for lunch. Katrina and Melody were the youngest of us at Army Base 1, Melody 14 and Katrina 13, but their own trauma had aged them considerably, and despite their small, malnourished bodies they looked barely younger than me.

At lunch, where I usually played poker with Lars and Benjamin, a man in his mid-twenties with blonde streaks in his hair, The archer had near silent conversations with the A girl, which looked more to me like lip-reading because they talked that quietly. I saw Lars listening intently on occasion, and often wondered if her could understand English, if not speak it.

After lunch, when it was group 2’s shift for work, which included Brad and I, the nameless archer and her friend trained, killing the undead that waited outside, and shooting and stabbing dummies until the shadows became longer in the dwindling light.

They never worked, the two girls, and I could tell that angered Emilie, Sofia and Alex, who devised the system of work for rations here. However, the other ‘leader’, Jake, though he hated to be called that, advised the others to make sure they didn’t work, as, in his words ‘they were most likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and didn’t ought to be harming themselves further doing manual labour’. Emilie grumbled for a while about the ‘layabouts’ filching free food off us but was eventually swayed by her boyfriend’s pleading.

James, Brad and I didn’t get off lightly despite us saving the girls. We were shoved straight into hard labour, with James on the night shift!

Brad and I did two hours physical training in the gym followed by emergency drill on how to shut the shields, along with firearm training and finally electrical training on how to hook up generator and ham radios and thing like that- they even made our group do the dishes after evening rations!

After final rations, the archer would go to her room again, this time leaving the door open a tiny amount. She lay back on her bed; feet pressed into the wall, and sang softly. She wasn’t the best I’d ever heard, but her voice was fascinating to listen to, and I often found myself lured in by the lulling tone of broken chords. I noticed that this was the only time she let her emotion through, as she often cried while she sang, her entire body racked with painful shakes of agony, the occasional moan of anguish breaking from her throat though she tried to stop them with all her willpower.

11 days after our arrival at Army Base 1, I stood in the doorway of her room as she sang, somehow melodically attached to her own personal spirit world others could not dream of being part of. She hummed quietly, and sometimes a word would escape her mouth, but I couldn’t identify the song. Despite what the others said about her, about her being a layabout, about her caring about her appearance even in this post-apocalyptic world, and about her constant silence but perfect seemingly effortless combat style. I didn’t understand their talk, as she was just a young girl who was obviously hurt badly by this life.

She started to sing suddenly, as if she remembered the words to the song, which stirred something in my mind. She carried on, missing out a word here or there, but I definitely recognised it as one of our own.

Now, if this was a movie, or a TV series, I would have walked into the room, and sat down on the bed beside her, singing the words to Wildheart where we would join in a romantic and beautiful duet. But this was real life, and I spoiled this possible affect a little by tripping over the doorstop and landing on the shiny floor with a thud.

She turned her head and glared at me a little, her eyes narrowing, black lashes becoming single sets at the corners. She stopped singing, and closed her mouth into a flat line as I carefully pushed myself up on my elbows. Her eyebrows relaxed and she opened her mouth again, and I thought she was about to start singing when.

“Oh, hey Con,”

She spoke.