Becoming Them: A Zombie Novel

Twenty-Seven

     "Where's Ava?" Lucy asked. "She's late again."

     "She'll be here," I replied.

     Lucy and I were sat at the large table in the middle of the main room in the armoury, waiting for a knock on the door by Ava. Today was another day of training and Ava was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago. She had likely lost track of time when helping Patricia with the gardening, but I wasn't a very patient person, and I was getting kind of bored just sitting around doing nothing.

     Finally, there was a knock on the door.

     I got up and rushed to open it, but only saw Joey. Behind him was another man I didn't recognise.

     The man looked a lot younger than Joey but much older than me. Maybe in his late twenties. I hadn't seen him around before, but then again, I had only stayed here for around four weeks and a lot of that time was spent being trained by Lucy. It was hard to keep track of time when there weren't many clocks to keep a check.

     "Oh, it's just you," I said to Joey as I slumped my shoulders.

     "I'm really feeling the love here," Joey huffed, then walked past me to greet Lucy.

     "Hey, Joey," Lucy said, then focused her attention on the man next to him. "Hi, Sal, what brings you here?"

     Before Sal could speak, Joey cut in. "I, uh, asked him to take my place in watching the armoury. Thought I could tag along and see how the girls were doing with their training."

     "You want to come?" I asked, clearly surprised. Then I remembered he had a crush on Lucy and thought maybe this was him finally making the effort to spend more time with her.

     Joey turned to me. "Yes. Will that be a problem?" he asked.

     I shot my hands up. "No, no, no problem at all. You might just get bored is all."

     "Better than staying here. I had to bribe him with a day off of work to get him to do it."

     "Yeah," Sal said, taking his cap off and rubbing the back of his neck. "Could I get, like, a timeframe of how long you're going to be gone for?"

     "Not long," Lucy said. "Well, it might drag on for you. Get a book or something. We'll be more than just a few hours."

     Sal groaned, shooting daggers at Joey, who only shrugged in response. "Fine, fine," Sal said.

     There was another knock at the door and everyone went quiet as I checked to see who it was. Thankfully, it was a breathless Ava.

     "You took your time," I teased.

     She glared at me as she struggled to catch her breath, then she looked at Lucy apologetically. "Sorry. Pat wanted me to plant more seeds and then made me stay behind to take out the weeds."

     "It's okay, Ava," Lucy said. "Let's get going." Lucy handed the keys over to Sal and then we all grabbed our bags and left.

     Lucy pulled out another set of keys, leading us to a car, where she unlocked the boot. We placed all of our bags inside before Ava and I piled into the backseats and Joey took the passenger seat.

     "Everyone buckled in?" Lucy asked as she inserted the key into the ignition.

     "Yes!" Ava and I shouted in unison. Joey only laughed.

     The gates opened and we left the driveway, starting the hour-long drive to the field again, now with Joey.

     When we arrived, the car came to a slow stop at the side of the road. We grabbed all of our bags and trudged across the grass until we saw the familiar markings of the red and white targets Lucy had painted on the trees a few weeks ago. The colour had faded slightly over time and the bark was now peppered with faint holes from shooting practice.