Free After the Fall (Book 1): Outside by Stephen Cross Page A

than a satellite. Every inch of him shook.
    “Annie,” he said. “Shit, I thought… Quick, get away from the window, it might see you,” he managed to whisper.
    You nearly brained your daughter you nearly killed her yourself you fucking idiot you’re a fucking brainless idiot.
    Annie said something. She was still by the window. He rushed in and pulled her down to the bed. “I said get away, it might see you.”
    “Ow, Daddy you’re hurting me.”
    Jack realised he was pinning her arm down. “Sorry, but keep quiet, it might go away.”
    “It’s a sheep.”
    “What?”
    “It’s a sheep, Daddy. I heard it banging outside so I looked and I think it’s lost. I think it wants to get dry.”
    A sheep. Jack got up slowly and peered out the window, his nerves causing the slats to rattle slightly.
    Thump thump.
    A big, woolly sheep nosed at the side of the chalet.
    There was an old part of Jack that knew he should find this funny.
    “Come on,” he said to Annie. “You’re sleeping in my room.”
    “But Daddy, you snore.”
    “Come on Annie.” He took his daughter by the hand and led her briskly back to his room. “Just for tonight.”
    She got into the large double bed and seemed to fall asleep within seconds.
    It took Jack longer. Most of the night.

Chapter 2
     
    “What’s for breakfast?” said Annie. She was cuddling her sheep teddy.
    “Porridge sound good?” said Jack. He opened the cupboard and pulled out a tupperware jar that contained some oats.
    “We always have porridge,” said Annie, her face glum.
    “Well, once they have the Frosties factory open again, I’ll let you know.”
    She pulled up a chair by the dining table.
    “I’ll get some water,” he said.
    The water butt was outside. He paused by the door. He always paused by the door. He took a deep breath and grabbed the door handle. He turned round to look at Annie. She was watching him.
    “It’s ok Daddy. I don’t think there are any out there.”
    He nodded and opened the door.
    The Chalet was at the edge of Tulloch’s holiday park. The view from the doorway opened up across rolling patchwork fields, where sheep wandered oblivious to the new and desperate world around them.
    The water butt was next to the door, placed there so that he wouldn’t have far to go. He didn’t like to go outside, not if he could help it.
    The holiday park was very still at this time of morning. In any other world, this would be a beautiful place. The sea was only five minutes walk away across the thin band of sand dunes that separated the park from the beach. There was a leisure facility with a swimming pool, gym and sport’s hall. There was a bar, a restaurant, and of course a play park. Annie would have spent all her days there, if Jack had let her.
    But it wasn’t home. He wondered what had become of Leeds, where he had lived. He wondered what had become of Stewart, the workmate who had lent him use of the chalet Jack and his daughter were now living in. He wondered what his wife, Amy, would have thought of the chalet.
    Even thinking her name hurt. Her name would flash him back to the night they had arrived, when she had been torn apart by zombies in that road in the middle of nowhere, in the moaning, hissing, flesh hungry darkness.
    He replayed the night over in his mind. The broken down white van. Him stopping, insisting he check to see if anyone was hurt.
    Amy asking him not to go.
    Why hadn’t he listened to her?
    Sometimes, he lay down, closed his eyes and imagined he had agreed with her, imagined he hadn’t gone to check the van. If they had just drove on then she would be alive. He tried to will that parallel universe into existence. He would fall asleep, maybe dream of them all together again as a family, and wake, the pillow wet from tears. Who cries in their sleep? Pathetic.
    He jumped at a sound above him. A seagull had landed on the roof and clattered clumsily across the boards. It eyed Jack.
    Jack took a scoop of water back into the