The Undead Day Nineteen by RR Haywood Page A

awareness of the way Zayden watches her and responds is acute. If a boy was the new number one she might stand a much better chance at guiding him, manipulating him. That’s what it is. Manipulation. Cold and disgusting but necessary. You do what it takes to protect your own.
    She looks round as though assessing the damage and spots Liam keeping watch with a few other youths at the broken wall to the old armoury. At the back she sees another cluster hanging about the stores where the ammunition and weapons are kept. Another group down by the gate, milling about talking, drinking cans of coke, eating crisps and smoking cigarettes. There must be another group outside on the narrow shore. Liam has only four with him. Three at the back guarding the ammunition. Four inside the gate. Maybe four or five on the shore. Zayden and his two younger boys. A few more dotted about the fort. Sierra and four girls in the police offices. Thirty at the most. She glances over to the stacked corpses dumped outside the hospital. Most of the civilians were at the far side of the fort and only a few got hurt from the explosions. The youths were all close and too slow to duck, run or take cover. So many of them were killed or seriously wounded.
    Thirty then. Thirty armed kids now running the fort all under the control of Sierra. The adult survivors outnumber them vastly. They could take back control. No, these children have automatic weapons. They’d slaughter the survivors without blinking then laugh about it after. Lilly has seen the rate of fire from automatic weapons, their power and the ease of pulling a trigger to take someone’s life.
    A new emotion joins the many already running through her heart as shock and guilt kick in. Shock that she’s even contemplating a course of action that will result in further loss of life. The guilt she feels is misplaced and mistaken for the initial belief that she is merely trying to take control and power to have it for herself but her intelligence soon dismisses and works that one through. The control wouldn’t be for her. It would be to protect Billy and the other children.
    Thirty.
    Zayden slips quietly next to her. His own face morphing as he tries to work out what just happened. He fancies Lilly but Skyla and the other girls were rude to her and he wanted to say something in the room and defend Lilly but he didn’t know what to say, and anyway, Sierra scares him. He wants to say something now, an observation on the behaviour and manner of his friends so she’ll think he’s nice but he lacks the education, emotional maturity and intelligence to translate those thoughts into words and it quickly becomes too confusing and too difficult. Instead he looks at Lilly. Uncaring and unbothered to the fact that she can feel the intensity of his gaze. The way he looks at her skin that is so smooth and unmarked, which is so different to the other girls he knows who have acne, pock-marks and scars. Her blue eyes too. Some of the other girls have blue eyes but Lilly’s are different. They’re expressive but Zayden doesn’t know what expressive means, just that Lilly looks different.
    His eyes drop to her chest. Lingering again on the swell of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist, the gentle curve of her arse. Sixteen years old and his prick stiffens in response to the view his eyes take in.
    ‘Got a room,’ he grunts.
    ‘Pardon?’ Lilly flinches, absorbed in her own thoughts.
    ‘I got’s my own room now, you get me.’
    She pauses, hiding her revulsion at the lust in his face, ‘I see, well…I am sure you will be glad of the privacy after…’
    ‘Wanna see it?’
    ‘Your room? Well yes of course I do but you know, I’m looking at this terrible mess right now, Zayden and thinking where the best place to start is. May I ask? How do we dispose of the bodies of the dead children? I mean, some of them must be your friends? Is that right?’
    A mean but necessary manipulation to deflect his