Chapter Two

Coming Back

When Leah awoke for the third time it was early morning. The first time had been in the middle of the night. Her body had simply given up when they had arrived to take her away in the ambulance. She must have muttered something about being cold for on waking in this bed she had found herself she was wrapped in one of those silvery thermal blankets beside normal night attire. Lying there, she had stripped herself mechanically, freeing herself from the stifling wrapping. She was cold all right, cold inside herself, but her body was nearly at its normal temperature.

Two people had entered shortly after she had stripped off and lay again beneath the bedclothes – a policeman and policewoman.

She almost laughed out loud at them. The woman, spurred on by something terrible in Leah’s face, had gone to get help and two doctors had subdued her, trying to wrap her up again until she managed to explain to them quite logically why she was warm enough as she was.

In the end they had left her alone in her nakedness as long as she was discreetly covered.

The two officers were there for a particular reason. A terrible rape and murder had been committed and they had to get the culprits quickly - for it looked as if there was more than one of them – before the media started the usual circus.

The girl was the only living witness, so, traumatised or not, they had to get her account of what had happened.

“Leah,” asked the policewoman gently, “I know a terrible thing has happened to you, but could you tell me your side of the story?”

Leah was far from stupid. She knew what would happen to her if she chirruped up and said:

“Oh yes, I can explain. My companion was torn apart by a group of dead people while I watched – then the chief zombie raped me just before the police arrived.”

This, and the other facts meant that if she spoke up she would be quickly assigned a psychiatric assessment – she would probably get one anyway as part of the routine. But is she told her true story she would be doped up and end up more zombiefied than the creatures she had been dealing with.

“I was out on the road with Cameron. He was a bit drunk at the time and he had been driving too fast and broke something in the car itself. She did in fact believe this. Not the drunk part, but the bit about the car.

That was when she decided to do a bit of acting. This was based on what she thought she OUGHT to be doing rather than how she actually felt.

“It was horrible…we saw a light in the distance. It was like burning torches. We went to them and found ourselves in an old graveyard. Then the men in black jumped on us. I ran off but they attacked Cameron. I don’t know what they did to him, but one ran after me and he…” here she turned away and put her head to the pillow as if dissolving into tears. The policewoman put a comforting hand on her shoulder. The big policeman just kept stolidly writing in his notebook.

“One of the men grabbed me and threw me down. Then he…he…then…”

She broke up again whilst the policewoman gave her what was supposed to be a comforting hug.

Leah screamed with laughter inside and had a little shiver of pride.

“You bitch,” she said to herself. “Fucking Oscar material this.”

“Then he raped me..but then.. they all raped me.”

“What did these men look like?” asked the big policeman solemnly.

What do you think they looked like? Thought Leah. Think a victim as traumatised as I am could tell you, you witless cunt?

A side of herself listened to these thoughts in absolute horror. She was no prude, neither were her family, but they had a code when it came to bad language. The only expletive you used where of the ‘damn’ and ‘blast’ types and then only when you were really angry.

Their father could use much stronger language on the factory floor amongst the men, but he saw no reason to bring then into the home. So Leah subdued some of her more obscene thought and instead concentrated on her description of the men.

They were all a similar age – late 20’s – and clearly of some exotic extraction. They were dark, but not black and one was taller than the rest.

When she was finished she felt nothing but contempt for the police. They were delighted with a witness who, despite her obvious trauma, was together enough to give them such a detailed statement.

Now the truth! Her mind screamed. I was raped by a huge dead man with greenish, mouldy skin and wiggling things in his mouth who looked like the popular conception of ‘Heathcliff’ from ‘Wuthering Heights.’ Put that in your fucking pipe and see if it gives off smoke you cock-sucking black-clothed bastards.

Those thoughts stayed well hidden.

But the nursing sister came in and told the police it was time to go. At the end of her interview Leah slurred her words and pretended she was drifting off to sleep. They left, and she actually did fall asleep.

When she woke about an hour later her family were beside the bed, including her younger brother. She didn’t speak much with them. It was clear that her father was incredibly upset by what had happened but was trying to hide it with a bluff cheerfulness he did not feel. Her mother – a true woman – understood a lot better and merely offered her sympathy and low talks about nothing in particular.

Robert really did not know what had happened. They had obviously kept most of the truth from him. But even he was subdued, for he knew at least that his sister had been attacked.

The whole family conversed with her in low but cheerful voices for half an hour, then the ubiquitous medical staff appeared and asked them to leave because – to be blunt the girl was in no fit state to deal with them.

Now, as she woke again it was daylight. The sun was not as bright as it could have been because the shutters were closed. She was in a room by herself in what they called a side ward. It was quite spacious and very clean but she didn’t belong there and she knew it.

The window was one of those long affairs designed to allow light to absolutely flood into the room, something she did not want.

Now she watched as the door opened and a young male nurse came in. He was bearing a huge bunch of flowers.

She fixed her gaze on the gaudy blooms with annoyance. They were too bright, too obvious.

The male nurse gave her a friendly glance. He was young indeed, not much older than she was, and as he put the flowers down he spoke to her in calming tones.

“Oh Leah, don’t worry, the other er female nurses are busy, so I just brought in these. They’re from you’re family.

It was obvious that beneath his friendly exterior he was wary of her reaction. It was clear that he had thought she was sleeping and had just taken the opportunity to nip in with some blooms. He had been startled to find her so thoroughly awake.

“My name is Lucas.” He put the flowers – pinks roses and ferns intermixed on her bedside table. “I’ll just let a little light in on this.”

“No,” she said, “I like it like this, more cosy.” She kept her tone friendly and neutral to. He had already had his hand on the shutter, now he let it drop and moved towards the door, all the while keeping his eyes on her. Leah smirked inwardly at this.

By coming into a rape victims room he had unwittingly left himself open to some major problems and it was clear he didn’t like that one bit. The cold hardness inside her made her want to play with this immature specimen.

She sat up in bed and allowed the blankets to drift down a little.

They had given her some kind of gown, but she had shrugged this off in the early hours so she was totally naked beneath the pristine sheets.

“Do you have to go so soon?” she pouted a little. Lucas paused briefly and that was his fatal move. Leah allowed the top sheet to drift even more, showing her pert, pink nipples. “I mean, do you have to go so soon. Then she pulled the aside the bedclothes so that her nakedness was revealed to the young man. Some male nurses were gay. Nothing wrong with that, they just felt a calling to the caring professions. This one clearly wasn’t because he stepped forward, fascinated by what he was seeing.

“I…I’ll go for…” he began, but she cancelled out all of his arguments by throwing off the bedclothes completely and gazing at him frankly the whole time.

It was the first time she had let a man see her like this, in her entirety, but she felt no sense of shame at all in the act. In fact, somewhere deep inside she was revelling at the power she had over this young man mesmerised as he was by what she was doing. There was no doubt at all that she held sway over him because her could not keep his gaze off her body and every footstep brought him ever nearer. He was a moth caught in the flame of her fire.

“Do you like what you see?” she asked in as low voice that was barely more than a whisper. He nodded, beyond speech. Now she could see that he had a bulge in his trousers. She lifted one hand as if to stroke his erection and he came even closer.

But there was a part of her that did not want this. They might have washed and cleaned her when she was brought but one particular part of her was still sore where she had been violated and it was an experience she never wanted to be repeated ever again.

The young man was now at her side. He softly gathered her in his arms and held her to him, revelling in the softness of her body. For a moment she responded to him, kissing him on the lips and enjoying the sensation as he ran his hands down her firm and youthful body.

Leah – the original Leah – decided to come to life at that moment.

“No!” she screamed at the same grabbing him formerly. The coldness inside her seemed to have given her some kind of superhuman strength, for she picked Lucas up with both hands and heaved him bodily towards the shuttered, plate-glass window.

All would have been well if the window itself had been of a more traditional construction, but the some bright spark of an architect had made it plate glass all around, held in place by metal stays at the top, sides and bottom. Now the folly of that design was made clear as for the shutters came off and folded around the boy on impact, while the glass itself exploded into a thousand fragments.

A large one of these came lancing down just as the boy struggled up, still under the blind, and the arrow of glass embedded itself in his back.

The boy gave a high-pitched scream and flailed backwards into the space where the window had been. His screams were abruptly cut off and Leah, naked as the day she was born, got out of bed and walked over to the space, blinking in the brightness of the sun.

Miraculously her feet were uncut by the fragments of glass that littered the ground around her.

She stood at the window and shaded her eyes with both hands and looked at the ground.

The body of the young man lay on the concrete below. It was a grey roadway beside the hospital. He had landed at the corner with the main stretch, and the delivery area of the hospital, four floors down was just where he lay. As Leah watched a food truck came around the corner and ran straight over the body. The young man’s lifeless form jerked briefly beneath the wheels before it was completely crushed, his lifeblood and intestines staining the ground.

The side ward door crashed open and two orderlies and a doctor rushed in. They were astonished to find themselves confronted by a young, totally naked woman who was standing amid broken glass, shading her eyes against the sun, and looking down.

And laughing.

Peal after peal of laughter burst from her pretty mouth.

The men wasted no time, but picked her up bodily. With her new strength she could have flung them off but she did not resist for she had to get away from that awful, withering sunlight.

Fortunately the medical staff had the same idea for the more practical reason that her room was totally exposed to the elements.

The bed was one of those affairs with trolley wheels so beloved of hospitals. They flung some covers atop her and pushed her out of the room, across the corridor and into and empty ward.

The doctor wasted no time. He lifted the syringe her had brought in with him when he had first alerted the staff to the major disturbance in room 19. (He thought she had thrown a vase through the window, not an uncommon even in these violent days.)

He slid the smooth needle under the skin of her left bicep and massaged the spot to make the opiate sink in faster. The last sound in her ears for a while was the noise of police sirens as they sped to where the shattered body of a young man lay.