Biting Back (Book 1): Four Women of the Apocalypse Read online

  Nicky turned away and felt that there was something not quite right. She looked down at her groin and saw an erection showing through her sweatpants.

  Oh lord! Not now! What in the hell?

  She remembered reading the Patient Information Leaflet on her hormone patches and recalled that this was a rare, but possible occurrence in one in so many users.

  Great, so I’m the ‘one in so many’ am I? Never happened before though.

  Maybe, she concluded, fear and adrenaline mixed with the estragon is the magic combo!

  “Oh...fuck me” she muttered to herself as she pushed the protuberance down and headed towards the stairs. She was on the third floor and she knew from previous visits that the pharmacy and the canteen were on the ground floor.

  Nicky pushed the door to the stairwell open and stood still, listening for any footsteps or any other untoward noises. All was quiet surprisingly, and she entered and started down the steps as cautiously as she could. Her hard on was deflating and completely gone by the time she reached the ground floor.

  Nicky slowly pushed the door open. It was well used, and didn’t make any noise. She poked her head out and saw the canteen in front of her. It looked empty. Where had everyone gone? Was there an evacuation? She wondered. Maybe there is some great big gang of them somewhere? Well they are not here, so, fuckit I can live with that!

  Looking left and right, she made her way across the corridor and onto the open plan canteen. Tables and chairs were askew and blood was covering many of the seats and tabletops. The floor was slick in places with it.

  Nicky carefully stepped around all the puddles and obstacles until she came to the counter. The fresh food was congealed and dried up after being left out for so long. The smell was sweet and ugly. But even so, her empty stomach seemed to show no care for the spoilt fayre and it rumbled loudly.

  Instead she went for the breakfast and protein bars displayed near the till. She opened one of the bars without even checking the label, and scoffed it down. The blueberry fruit flavour exploded in her mouth, instantly drying and glueing her tongue to her waxy palate. She went to the chiller, grabbed some water and immediately drank half of the bottle’s contents. Taking two more, she put them in her backpack along with several of the bars. Before zipping the bag back up, she reached in and retrieved one more slab of goodness. She ripped open the packaging, and hastily bit into the fruity bar, but she took her time chewing with this one.

  She now had food and water. A weapon and her patches left to get, and she would be good to go. Making her way around the back of the counter, she nearly threw up her recent sustenance when she saw, rather randomly, a severed hand sticking out of the register drawer. The white bone was shining and ragged, broken as though a couple of breadsticks had just been snapped in half.

  As bad as it was, Nicky couldn’t stop the thought of somebody getting caught with their hand in the till flitting through her mind. A gruesome little smile passed over her lips, What the hell is wrong with me? She thought, first a stiffy because I nearly died? now I’m cracking jokes at somebody losing a fucking hand! Shaking her head, she turned away.

  She eventually found what she was looking for. The kitchen knives were all held magnetically onto the wall and there was everything from a cleaver to a cheese knife. After getting the feel of a few in her hand she settled on two knives with sturdy spines and rubberised handles that hopefully, would stop any slippage in her grip.

  Nicky had never stabbed anyone before. Would she be able to stick a knife into a moving body? She tried to imagine a scenario where she would have to thrust her arm forward and sink a knife into somebody’s stomach. Even worse, she remembered that the broadcast upstairs had said that she must damage the brain to stop one of these things! She hoped beyond hope that she would not have to find out.

  She put the knives in the pockets on either side of her back-pack with the handles sticking out so she could grab them easily.

  With weapons now ticked off her list, and feeling just a bit ‘Lara Croft’ she added a little swagger to her step. The last thing needed from the hospital was her patches. A luxury to some; but not to Nicky. She had come too far in her transition to start taking any steps back now. Besides, she wasn’t sure, but the old groin may start playing up more if she didn’t get her medicine.

  She made her way out of the canteen keeping as quiet as possible, swivelling her head all around her. The green neon cross along the corridor was still shining brightly announcing the location of the pharmacy.

  The quiet of the hospital was really unnerving Nicky. She kept looking around her, waiting for a horde to approach. But, still, not a soul living or undead seemed to be around.

  She arrived and pushed the door to the pharmacy open. She took one of the knives in her hand, and kept it up at chest height. But once again, an empty waiting room greeted her. The hatch to the pharmacy was closed and the door beside it looked more like a bank vault with locks and lights dotted all around. Maybe my patches are not going to be gotten in here, Nicky thought. I’m never going to get in through that monstrous looking door. Tapping half-heartedly on the hatch window with the tip of her knife whilst thinking of her next move, she was interrupted when the hatch suddenly slid open and revealed a short, balding man with little round spectacles perched on his nose and wearing a pharmacists white coat.

  “Can I help you?” he said.

  Nicky stood at the hatch with her mouth gaping.

  “Hello!” the little man said waving a hand in front of her face. “Can I help you, miss? Or are you just going to stand there all day? I don’t have time for this; please miss, you must understand, I am a very busy person!”

  “Erm..yes sorry!” Nicky spluttered. “Eh, I would like to get some estrogen patches please. Uh Estradiol if you have them?” The man stood still, waiting. “Um...please?” Nicky said unsure at his delay, and thinking maybe he was a stickler for manners. The chap continued to stand staring at Nicky, his eyes narrowing. “Pretty please, with cherries on top?”

  The pharmacist gave Nicky a slow look up and down and sighed, “And where is your prescription SIR?” shocked, Nicky said, “What!? You can’t be serious? You want a prescript…wait, what? Sir? Ohh..okay, I see. You have a problem with me do you? There is a fucking apocalypse going on and you are going to get shitty with me? Is that right?!”

  The pharmacist sneered, making his face even rounder. Nicky could feel the small repressed amount of testosterone left in her body build up. She felt like she could smash this little shitbag all around the hospital. But, taking a deep breath to calm herself down, she clawed back her anger.

  This was not the first time she had encountered prejudice. She was very feminine, and her gender was never really a question, so she had only very rarely come across it, but she was well trained by her therapist to deal with these situations, and had practiced her coping mechanisms to help too. Nicky brought her index finger and thumb together and squeezed as a method to get the mind to re-focus.

  Without another word, she opened the exit door and left the room. She heard the hatch slam shut behind her. She looked around her and gave a big sigh.

  New plan then...get out and find a local pharmacy, I guess, she thought. She started to make her way to the exit and as she rounded onto the reception area, she froze in place.

  Well! The mystery is solved! she thought. Now she knew why the hospital was so quiet. Something must have drawn the undead outside and kept them there.

  The car park was totally jammed with infected. No room to move or turn or even breathe as the bodies were that closely packed in!

  Wait…Do zombies actually need to breathe? Shaking the random thought away, she carefully backtracked into the corridor.

  There must be another exit around here somewhere? She thought as she started to make her way back up the corridor. Passing by some consultation rooms on both sides, she merely glanced in and stopped short as her eye caught something of great interest in one of them.

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sp; Taking her knife in hand again, she tapped lightly on the glass window of the door. With no reaction to this, she pushed the door open and entered the small anteroom that housed the secretary to the doctor. There on the desktop was a prescription pad.

  Hah! Now I can at least get my patches! she thought.

  Nicky wrote the details of her requirements onto the pad, and after glancing at the doctor’s signature on one of the many letters on the desk, scrawled a rough copy onto the bottom of the sheet. Jeez…That looks bloody good, Nicky girl! You could have made it as a forger and never knew it! Smiling, she ripped off the sheet shoved it in her pocket, and turned to leave. Before she got to the exit, a loud thud sounded at the consultant’s door, making her jump. Unsure if the noise was made by the living or the dead, she was frozen with indecision of what to do.

  She crept to the door and pressed her ear up to the wood. She gently tapped on the door the universal code of ‘shave and a haircut…’ hoping for the reply of ‘two bits’ but only another thud sounded. She stepped away, now sure that she could not help the poor soul inside.

  Nicky made her way back into the pharmacy and entered the waiting room this time with less caution. She tapped on the hatch window and waited. Eventually the small, bespectacled man showed up. Pursing his lips as he saw who was at the window again.

  “Yes SIR?” “How can I help you?” This time Nicky retrieved her prescription from her pocket and without a word pushed it over the counter top towards the little man. His eyes grew wide at the sight of the piece of paper. “Wh…where did you get this?” he spluttered.

  “You wanted a prescription, you have one. Now get what I need and I will wait here for you.” Nicky smirked as the wee man turned, muttering to himself, and pranced into the rear of the multi-shelved room.

  She took in the small waiting area as she sat in one of the chairs. The usual posters adorned the walls concerning high cholesterol, low immunity and head lice, amongst other things. The small table had ragged copies of magazines lying haphazardly on top. Six chairs, and a fire extinguisher completed the drab little space.

  The hatch pulled back less than five minutes later.

  Without any preamble the pharmacist looked out and pointed at Nicky. “SIR? You, yes you, SIR, I have your medicine” he emphasised rudely. The inference was not lost on Nicky who felt her ire rise again. Taking a long, deep breath, she stood and went to the hatch.

  The offered packets were held out, and she grabbed them and the wrist of the pharmacist too. He jumped back but stopped short as Nicky had a stiff grip on him.

  He spluttered and said “What are you..let go of me! Get off! Get OFF!” Instead, Nicky pulled him up to her face until their noses were almost touching. Barely keeping her anger in check and through gritted teeth she said

  “Look at me…Just look at me. I am nothing to you. Thankfully, you are nothing to me. It looks like the world has come to an end and you...” she gripped his wrist harder causing him to whimper. “...you, still have time for prejudice and hatred? You odious little man. Let me tell you, I am the very least of your worries! Have you seen what’s out there? Have you?” Just as the small man was about to speak, his eyes fixed on something behind Nicky, and widening his mouth to form a soundless ‘ohh’. The next thing Nicky felt was a blinding pain, a clunk, and blackness.

  Nicky came too as she was being hoisted over someone’s shoulder. She felt sick to the point of retching and her head was dripping blood down over the top of her skull and matting in her long brown hair.

  The gag in her mouth was not helping the nausea, and she groaned. The next thing she felt was a hand on her backside, and then a rub and a stinging slap. “Don’t worry darling, you will soon be safe and sound!” the voice was loud, shouting out next to her.

  Dirty laughter from another man could just be heard through Nicky’s pounding head. She tried to push away and felt that her hands were bound with a zip tie. Further movement told her that her feet, too, were fastened. Looking up as she was swung around, she saw that she was still in the waiting room of the pharmacy and from her elevated position, she could see the pharmacist’s torso pulled out over the counter and a knife sticking out from his neck.

  He was still alive, but only barely and not for long, as little air bubbles in the pumping blood rose and created a little beehive around the knife’s entry wound on his neck.

  His eyes locked onto Nicky as she was being taken out of the room. It was ironic that the last thing he would see in his life was going to be her, after just showing her such disdain. She saw a wet tear escape his eye and roll to the bridge of his nose where it plopped off to mingle with the growing crimson puddle on the worktop.

  She heard the voice beside her shout out. “Get his keys. Get in there and get all the drugs you can! We have scored big time here, mate! The boss will be pissing his pants when he sees this haul!” Nicky felt another rub against her buttocks “but maybe we can keep one or two things for ourselves eh!?”

  “Yessss Francie!! Hey! Can I get first shot at this one? She is a real looker, and I’m sick of sloppy seconds!”

  As she was being taken away she heard Francie reply, “Get all the drugs and get to the van in ten minutes and you’re on, Joshy boy! Hey, I may even tell JC about all your hard work too”

  A coldness started in her stomach and then rolled all over Nicky, and she started to weep.

  As she was taken out through an ambulance bay, she could see through her watery vision that one of the vehicles had crashed near the entrance around the front and had its flashing lights still going. That seemed to be the main attraction, keeping the zombies static and crammed together until something more interesting came along.

  They continued to walk past the emergency vehicles lined up at the loading bays, and further away from the massed horde. The man she heard called Francie mouthed to Nicky over his shoulder, “You had better keep your pretty little self quiet or we will have all of those fuckers charging over here for a snack, and I don’t think you would be able to run very far would ya?!” He sniggered as he reached the black van and opened the back door. As if Nicky were a sack of potatoes, he shimmied her off his shoulder and slammed her on the floor of the van. Stars appeared within her vision but she didn’t black out again. The door shut and she was in the dark.

  The world felt hopeless. Tears slid down the sides of her face. She knew that she would never get to look for her sister, Immy, even if it was to put her down and give her peace. She would never know what it was like to truly be a woman. She would never find a man, fall in love and get married. Somehow, these thoughts seemed calm her, and they gave her a clarity of thinking that surprised her. Noises from outside the van caused her breathing to increase and muffled voices filtered into her space. The door opened and the brightness momentarily blinded her. Plastic bags were thrown above her and landed behind her head. For the first time she got a look at the man called Joshy.

  Josh was a filthy, unshaven man that had facial tattoos that told the story of his jail time. The apocalypse was a pure gift for men like this and his intent was to enjoy it as much as he could, for as long as he could. He knew that he was not too high in the pecking order, so getting first dibs on any of the women or merchandise they found was an unexpected pleasure.

  He immediately started to breathe heavily when he caught sight of the tied up woman in the back of the van. He looked back to Francie for permission and this was given in the form of a thumbs up and a wink. “Just be quick and be quiet!”

  Leering, Josh climbed in the back and pulled the door closed behind him. Unable to stand fully in the confined space, he crouched as he started to undo his belt. Nicky started to shake with uncontrollable fear, and her pulse thundered in her ears. “Please, you don’t have to do this…please?” Nicky cried. The words fell on deaf ears as the ultimate prize was all that was filtering in to this weak man’s mind.

  Realising that he would need access, Josh brought out his knife and cut the tie around Nicky’s le
gs. He quickly pulled at her sweat pants, drawing them down her legs until inside out, they were discarded. In the darkness of the van, the man did not see the one thing that he was not expecting, and that the fear that Nicky felt had taken an effect for the second time that day.

  As he knelt down, he grabbed her ankles and spread her legs apart. He put his hand out to feel his way, and inadvertently nudged Nicky's erect penis.

  He let out a shout of surprise and jumped back, crashing into the rear doors, slamming them open. The light flooded in and Josh fell backwards out of the van with his jeans around his ankles. The sound of his head hitting the surface was like a coconut cracking. Francie looked surprised and angry at the commotion. He quickly turned to see if the noise had been heard by anyone, or anything else, and seeing no movement he peered into the dark interior, and started to laugh. He laughed so hard that he couldn’t catch his breath. Tears were coursing down his face and he was bent at the waist, trying to gain an intake of air between his guffaws.

  Nicky, now with her legs free, decided that there was only one thing left to do. She started swinging her legs wildly, hitting anything and everything in the back of the van. The noise as she pummelled the van’s walls and floor was enough to get the interest of the horde.

  Spotting this, Francie soon pulled himself together, grabbed Nicky by an ankle, and pulled her out of the van, dropping her hard onto the tarmac.

  “You dirty little freak! You can stay here and let them eat that fucking thing off you now if you really wanna be a girl!” He laughed maniacally at his own joke.