Zom-B Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t move. I can’t.
    “ you have to die now mummy ,” the baby says, and die is echoed in whispers around the cabin.
    I half rise and look over the top of the seats ahead of me. Babies everywhere, all standing, climbing the seats, looking at me, whispering die .
    I glance back—more of the same. Scores of babies clamberingover the seats, but calmly, smoothly, faces blank, eyes white, mouths open, teeth flashing.
    I cringe away from the monstrous babies and press hard against the window. I think I’m crying but I can’t be sure. The babies crawl over the seats, closer and closer, a tide of them, all looking the same. Only their fingers move, little flickers of flesh and bone. Otherwise they could be gliding.
    The baby next to me climbs into my lap and stands, feet planted on my thighs, face right in front of mine now. Others crowd around it. Unnaturally slender fingers fasten on my legs, my ankles, my wrists, my arms. A baby grabs my ears and pulls back my head, exposing my throat. There are more babies on the ceiling, hanging from it like angels or vampires.
    “ join us mummy ,” the baby directly in front of me says. The blood on its chin has dried. It falls off in flaky scabs.
    “ die mummy ,” the others croon.
    “ you’re one of us ,” the baby in my lap snarls, and suddenly its face changes. Its eyes glare red. Its lips contort into a sneer. Lines of hatred warp its clammy flesh. “ you’re one of us mummy ,” it shrieks.
    The baby thrusts forward and latches on to my throat. Those clinging to the ceiling drop. The rest press in around me. All of their mouths are open, rows of tiny, shiny teeth. All make a sickening moaning sound.
    Then they bite…

SIX
    … and I wake up.
    I’m shaking and sweating. I always am after the nightmare. I feel like I’ve been screaming, but in all these years I’ve never made a sound. Mum and Dad would have told me if I had.
    I only wear underpants and a T-shirt to bed. I used to wear pajamas, but I’d always sweat through them when I had the dream and have to dump them the next day.
    I get up and stagger to the bathroom. I take off the T-shirt on the way and drop it by the foot of my bed, knowing Mum will stick it in the laundry basket in the morning.
    I sit on the toilet, shivering. I don’t need to pee. I just have to wait somewhere outside my bedroom for a bit, until the shakes pass.
    I hate that bloody dream. Apart from when Dad is on the rampage, it’s the only time I ever feel truly scared, lost, out of my depth, helpless. What’s worse, I can’t tell anyone about it. What would it look like, someone my age admitting they’re scared by a dream about babies? I mean, if it was cannibals or monsters or something, fair enough. But bloody babies !
    Dad would skin me if he heard I still have the nightmare. When I’d go crying to him as a kid, he’d tell me not to be stupid, there was nothing scary about babies. When I kept bothering him, he whipped me with his belt. He asked a few weeks later if I was still having the dream, I forced a grin and said I wasn’t.
    When the shakes stop, I get up and wash my face and hands. I wipe sweat from my back with a towel, then pause and study myself in the mirror. My eyes are bloodshot and blurry with traces of fear–I think I sometimes cry quietly in my sleep–so I splash water over them and rub them with my knuckles until it hurts. Next time I check, I just look angry. That’s better.
    I study my light blue eyes and admire my stubbled head. Flex my biceps. Rub a faded yellow bruise on my left arm where Dad thumped me a week ago when I didn’t hand him the remote quick enough. I wink at myself and mutter, “Looking good, B.”
    I massage my stomach, to loosen the tightened muscles, then pick at the faded white scar near the top of my right thigh. It’s a small c shape, from an injection I had when I was two or three years old. It was a new type of flu vaccine. Dad volunteered me for it—theywere paying good money