Free Story | Zombie Horror | Monthly Free Stories
Part Two of Three
This is Part Two of The House on Alder Road, one complete Monthly Free Story presented in three parts.
“Formation changes here,” Mara said, looking from Kit to Sera and Jonah. “Tamsin is inside, and at least one infected followed her into these gardens. Beyond that door, we have no idea what the rooms look like or what else might be waiting.”
“You want me rear?” Jonah asked.
“Yes. Kit stays behind me and reads what he can. Sera reaches Tamsin once I clear the way. Nobody touches a body until Sera checks it.”
Sera drew the hatchet and held it low. “If she’s hurt?”
“You assess first,” Mara said, keeping her attention on the door.
“And if she’s bitten?” Sera asked.
Mara looked at her then. “You assess first.”
Sera gave a reluctant nod as Kit stepped away from the threshold to make room for Mara. “Door opens inward. Lower hinge is damaged,” he said. “Tamsin forced it, or someone before her did.”
“The tapping was above us,” Jonah added, glancing towards the upstairs windows as Mara slid the flat end of the crowbar into the gap beside the latch.
She worked the crowbar deeper until three more taps sounded from inside, weaker than the first. “We’re here, Tamsin,” Mara called through the wood. “Stay where you are. We’re coming to you.”
Bracing herself against the resistance, Mara leaned harder on the crowbar. The weakened latch gave before the swollen frame, releasing with a dull wooden crack that travelled through the rear of the house. The kitchen door shifted inward by little more than an inch, and damp air moved through the opening carrying old plaster, wet timber, mould and a heavier earthy smell from deeper inside.
Mara eased the crowbar free and pressed one gloved hand against the door. The damaged lower hinge groaned as the bottom edge scraped across the floor, widening the opening enough to show a narrow strip of tile, the leg of a kitchen table and a wall darkened by damp. Nothing moved anywhere in the space she could see.
Kit stayed close behind her, studying the threshold and the floor beyond it. “Drops near the left side,” he said quietly. “Two tiles are missing beside the cabinet.”
Mara pushed against the door again, its lower edge dragging over a dirt-stiff tea towel near the threshold before opening far enough for her to see deeper into the kitchen.
A wooden chair lay on its side several feet inside, one back leg broken and the seat blackened by damp. Two narrow windows filtered a dim green light through the ivy outside. Cupboard doors hung crooked from their hinges, and a rusted saucepan sat in the sink beneath a fallen sheet of ceiling plaster. Thin roots had entered through cracks near the outer wall, spreading along the skirting and through the leg of a collapsed shelf among fallen packets, fragments of crockery and a newspaper softened into the tiles until only pieces of print remained.
Mara listened for movement, then stepped across the threshold and placed her boot on the strip of tile Kit had judged firm. A faint creak travelled beneath the floor, followed by the slow release of water somewhere farther inside, and she stayed still until both sounds faded.
The cold here carried none of the freshness of the garden. It sat trapped in the walls and against her face, stale from rooms sealed through too many winters. A dark bloom of mould climbed behind the cooker towards the ceiling, while something pale had spread across one cupboard door in branching patches thick enough to resemble old lace.
Kit entered behind her, placing each foot where Mara had stepped before crouching beside a muddy print at the threshold. He pointed towards the heel. “Tamsin. She came through quickly.”
Mara followed the trail deeper into the kitchen. The prints were clearer here than they had been outside, wet mud carried in from the garden and pressed across the old tile in uneven strides. One landed partly on the fallen towel. Another smeared near the sink where Tamsin had changed direction.
Sera came through next and stopped near the door long enough to study the room. Her face tightened as she drew the air through her nose, then looked towards the mould climbing the wall. “That smell is wrong,” she said, keeping the hatchet low beside her thigh.
Jonah entered last and eased the door towards its old position, leaving a gap wide enough for retreat. “Wrong how?”
Sera shifted towards the centre of the kitchen, careful to avoid the broken tiles. “Mould has a wet, sweet edge when it gets this deep. Rotting wood carries something sharper. This has both, plus old decay underneath.”
Jonah looked towards the dark opening beyond the kitchen. “Human?”
Sera glanced around the room, her attention lingering on the roots, ruined cupboards and a mound of collapsed plaster beside the pantry. “Could be.”
Mara raised one hand and pointed towards the doorway leading into the hall. “We keep the formation tight.”
Kit stepped past the table and stopped beside a strip of white cloth caught around one of the chair legs. “Here.”
Mara came beside him and looked down at the cloth. It had been cut cleanly from a roll, one edge still carrying the faint weave pattern of medical gauze, though dirt had turned the lower half brown.
Sera crouched near it and examined the strip from a few inches away. “Bandage roll.”
“Tamsin’s kit?” Jonah asked as he remained near the rear door, radio tucked close against his chest.
Sera nodded slowly. “Same weave we use. Cut rather than torn.”
Mara looked towards the hall. Tamsin had brought a standard field kit from Millhaven. Cutting cloth here suggested treatment, binding, marking or all three. The thought settled heavily, though she kept it behind the task in front of her.
“Leave it,” Mara said, pointing towards the doorway. “We follow her first.”
The kitchen opened into a narrow passage where patterned wallpaper had peeled from the walls in long damp curls. A row of hooks still held two coats reduced to faded shapes, their hems touching a floor covered with leaves blown through gaps somewhere deeper in the house. The ceiling sagged around a brown water stain, and farther ahead the passage split, one side opening towards a front sitting room while the stairs rose along the opposite wall.
Kit moved behind Mara and angled his head towards the staircase. “Mud continues that way.”
The prints showed clearly on the first two steps, leading Mara’s eye to a dark smear along the banister rail. Sera came closer and studied the mark. “Blood.”
Near waist height, it ran along the wood for several inches before breaking where a hand had lifted away, almost black around the edges with dark red still visible through the low light. Mara stopped short of touching the rail. “Tamsin?”
“Likely from a hand or wrist,” Sera said, keeping her attention on the stain. “Amount tells me very little from here.”
A three-tap signal travelled through the pipes above them, the second strike arriving late and the final one softer still.
“She’s getting weaker,” Jonah said, lifting his gaze towards the ceiling.
“Then we go up.” Sera shifted towards the stairs, only for Mara to raise one hand across her path.
“We clear the route first,” Mara said.
“She may need treatment now,” Sera replied, leaning forward against the restraint of Mara’s arm.
“And if there are three infected on the landing, you reach her with none of your supplies,” Mara replied, keeping her voice low. “Thirty seconds spent clearing the hall gives you a better chance of using that bag.”
Frustration tightened Sera’s face before she looked towards the staircase. “Thirty.”
“If the house allows it,” Mara said.
Kit was already beside the first step, crouching near something caught against the skirting. He lifted a narrow rectangle of stiffened cloth between two fingers, its faded yellow stripe still visible across one end.
“Tamsin’s route tag,” he said, turning it enough for Mara to see the tiny identifying cut.
“She dropped that?” Jonah asked, moving closer.
“Could have snagged from the pack.” Kit turned the tag once more in the light.
Mara looked from the muddy prints climbing the steps to the blood beside the tag. No return prints marked the way back down. “She went up injured,” she said.
“Thirty seconds,” Sera reminded her, one hand tight around the satchel strap.
Mara turned towards the sitting-room opening and paused at the threshold, taking in the darker space beyond. Ivy and the remains of heavy curtains covered the windows, leaving a sofa sagging beneath the front wall and an armchair collapsed sideways near the fireplace, its broken frame driven into a mound of roots and fallen plaster. Shelves leaned around a low cabinet whose doors stood open, while moisture had lifted one edge of the rug from the floor.
Kit came to her shoulder and followed her gaze. “What is it?”
“I’m looking,” Mara said.
The room seemed fuller than its furniture accounted for. Roots entered through the wall around the fireplace, crossed behind the collapsed armchair and disappeared beneath the rug, while ivy had worked through a broken window and spread across the inside plaster towards the ceiling. Damp had drawn cloth, wood, earth and wall into the same muted grey-green and brown, blurring the shapes where one material ended and another began.
“Any prints?” Jonah asked from behind Sera.
Kit studied the strip of floor visible from the doorway. “One partial near the rug. Could be Tamsin.”
Mara stepped through the sitting-room doorway, placing her weight carefully as her boot sank slightly into the softened carpet. The pressure carried a faint tremor through the floor, shifting dust from the mantel and drawing a dry clicking sound from the tangle of roots near the collapsed chair that brought all four of them to a stop.
Keeping her eyes on the chair, Mara lowered her centre of balance as the sound came again and something moved beneath one torn edge of upholstery.
“Rat?” Jonah asked, raising the radio slowly against his chest.
“Too heavy,” Sera said, narrowing her eyes towards the chair.
Mara edged sideways for a clearer view past it, following the loops of root across the broken frame where dark wet bark gave way to paler split growth tangled with strips of faded fabric and what first looked like grey insulation. Her gaze caught on one pale shape where it narrowed into the cracked edge of a human fingernail.
She raised a hand to stop the others and leaned forward until the rest of the shape resolved beneath the chair into a human hand lying palm down, its fingers half curled into the carpet. Skin had dried tight around the bones, grey-brown and cracked across the knuckles. Fine roots passed between the fingers and over the wrist, while a thicker strand crossed the back of the hand and disappeared beneath a sleeve whose rotted fibres had become tangled with mould.
“There’s a body under there,” Kit said quietly beside her.
“Can you see the head?” Sera asked from nearer the doorway.
Mara followed the arm deeper into the tangle. The sleeve disappeared beneath the chair, leading to a shoulder almost lost against damp upholstery covered in moss-coloured growth. Part of the ribcage had collapsed beneath the weight of the furniture, while the head rested near the wall at an angle that hid most of the face behind roots and mould-stiffened hair.
“How long has that been there?” Jonah asked, staring past Mara.
“No way to tell from here,” Sera said, keeping her attention on the body.
As Mara shifted her boot away from the softened patch of floor, one of the curled fingers flexed against the carpet. The movement was slight enough to resemble a root slipping across the knuckle until the index finger dragged through dust and mould, carving a narrow line as the hand tightened.
Sera started to raise the hatchet, and Mara extended one arm across her path. “Hold.”
The body pulled against the growth binding it in place, stretching the roots around its wrist until one snapped with the sound of wet thread tearing. Another held long enough to peel a strip of dried skin from the forearm before sliding free, while the shoulder shifted beneath the collapsed upholstery and lifted the chair frame less than an inch before its weight pressed it down again. A low scrape came from deep in the throat.
“That thing was awake?” Jonah asked as he backed towards the hall.
“It is now,” Kit said, reaching for the pry bar.
The infected worked its head towards Mara, dragging roots across a face almost hidden beneath them. A pale stem ran from temple to jaw and had settled deep into the dried tissue around one eye. The other had clouded to the colour of dirty glass, yet still tracked Mara as she shifted her weight. One cheek had been pressed against the floor for so long that skin and carpet fibres seemed fixed together, and the mouth had dried open around blackened teeth threaded with fine root hairs.
Another pull broke a thicker root beneath its shoulder and released a warm wave of wet soil and old human decay through the room, strong enough to make Jonah turn his face aside.
“That’s what I smelled,” Sera said, staring at the body.
Mara watched the hand scrape another inch across the carpet, the fingers working slowly for purchase while the trapped body tried to draw itself from beneath the chair.
“It followed you when you shifted,” Kit said quietly.
Mara kept her eyes on the reaching hand. “Living movement still draws them.”
“Then let’s stop giving it chances,” Jonah said, glancing towards the hall before his eyes returned to the body. “How long could it have been under there?”
Sera kept the hatchet ready. “Long enough for those roots to grow across its hand and shoulder.”
Kit stared at the dried face beneath the chair. “The ones outside keep moving until something stops them. They wander. They follow sound or movement.” His voice lowered. “This one was lying here.”
“Hidden here,” Jonah said. “I looked straight at that chair and saw furniture.”
Mara watched the infected drag itself another inch across the carpet, bringing part of one shoulder free as the cloth across its back tore away in a damp strip. Black fungal spotting marked the exposed skin, with deep channels where roots had pressed into the flesh. Its lower body remained trapped beneath the broken frame, one leg folded under the weight, yet the reaching hand continued working towards them.
Sera’s expression tightened. “Skin that dry, joints that stiff, and it can still move.”
“How?” Jonah asked.
“I don’t know,” Sera said, and the uncertainty in her voice silenced him.
Mara looked from the infected to the roots stretched around its body. They had grown over the wrist, through the ruined clothing and around the shoulder deeply enough that the room had begun to hide the shape of a person. Whatever had happened here, the body had stayed in place long enough to become part of what they had mistaken for debris.
Kit shifted his weight carefully, and the infected’s clouded eye followed him. “It’s still tracking us,” he said.
“Living movement still draws it,” Mara replied, keeping her voice low. “That part hasn’t changed.”
Jonah looked towards the stairs. “The rest has.”
Mara followed his glance to the passage. They had a cleaner route upward through the hall, yet anything they carried back down with Tamsin would pass close to a body they had already disturbed. The infected might be slow and half pinned beneath the chair, though its hand had already reached farther than Mara expected.
“It can’t stand,” Sera said, watching the bent leg beneath the frame.
“Maybe it never needed to,” Kit replied. “It was quiet until we came in.”
Jonah looked sharply towards the other shapes buried among the room’s damp furniture and growth. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It wasn’t meant to,” Kit said.
The infected pulled again, roots tightening across its shoulder until one tore free with a wet snap. Its ruined mouth opened around another dry scrape from the throat.
Mara tightened her grip on the crowbar. “Whatever’s different about it, we deal with what it can do now. If it frees the hip, it can reach the doorway.”
“And Tamsin has to come back through here if we carry her,” Jonah said.
“We clear it,” Mara said.
She stepped sideways to draw the infected’s attention, and its head followed with slow, stiff movement while Sera came around from the opposite side with the hatchet ready.
“The chair keeps the skull low,” Sera said, judging the angle. “I can get behind the ear.”
“Take it,” Mara said, keeping her eyes on the reaching hand.
Sera planted one boot against the rug and drove the hatchet through the side of the skull. The infected jerked beneath the chair, one arm striking the floor hard enough to scatter dust as the roots around its shoulder pulled taut and snapped in several places.
She wrenched the blade free and struck again, leaving the hand open against the carpet as the remaining tension slowly left the body. Smaller movements continued for several seconds, fingers twitching and the jaw working once before falling still. Sera kept the hatchet raised until the clouded eye stopped following them.
Jonah remained several feet away, staring at the body beneath the broken chair. “I would have walked past that.”
“So would I,” Kit said, his attention settling on another dark mass beside the fireplace. “Mara, look at that.”
She followed his gaze across the room. What appeared from the doorway to be a strip of damaged wall rose vertically beside the fireplace beneath ivy, shadow and fallen plaster, its lower end buried among debris near the skirting. Mara moved closer, searching the uneven surface until the growth separated around the narrow shape of a wrist.
Jonah caught sight of it behind her and stopped. “That’s another arm.”
Layers of vine covered most of it. Bark, rotted cloth and dried skin had taken on the same damp brown and grey-green as the wall, leaving only the shape of the wrist and part of the hand recognisably human. The remains of a sleeve hung around the forearm in wet strips, while thick ivy crossed the elbow and disappeared into cracks behind it.
“There’s another one,” Sera said, keeping the bloodied hatchet raised as she moved nearer.
Mara lifted a hand to hold everyone where they were and studied the exposed fingers. “Give it space.”
The hand stayed fixed against the plaster while Sera edged closer and stopped beside Mara, leaving enough room to swing the hatchet. “Same as the one under the chair?”
“I don’t know yet,” Mara said.
Kit looked from the body in the wall to the roots surrounding the first infected. Unease had tightened his face. “One buried under furniture and another pressed into a wall. How long would they have to stay still for this much growth to cover them?”
“Years,” Sera said after studying the ivy around the elbow. “Possibly longer.”
Jonah stared at the arm. “Our infected don’t stay in one place for years.”
“No,” Mara said. “They follow movement until they lose it, then keep wandering.”
Kit glanced towards the infected beneath the chair. “These two stopped.”
Sera’s gaze moved across the sitting room. “And stayed stopped long enough for the house to grow over them.”
The implication sent Jonah’s attention towards the darker corners. “Until we walked in.”
Mara felt the same unease pressing through her as she examined the rest of the room with greater care. The mound beside the sofa still resembled collapsed cushions, though one rounded section now had the width of a human back. Damp fabric lay bunched beneath the window in a shape that might have hidden folded legs, while something near the cabinet curved beneath mould with the unmistakable slope of a shoulder once she knew what she was searching for.
“How many?” Jonah asked, keeping his voice low.
“We count only what we can identify,” Mara said. “Anything else stays suspect.”
Kit eased one foot backwards, and the floor creaked beneath his weight. The sound had barely faded before the vine-covered fingers tightened against the wall, sending Jonah recoiling towards the doorway as the elbow flexed and cracked the plaster around it. A piece the size of Mara’s palm broke free and struck the floor, exposing a shallow hollow where the arm had rested inside the damaged surface. Ivy stretched across the forearm, one stem cutting through dried flesh near the wrist before snapping under the strain.
“That was Kit moving,” Jonah said. Fear had taken the humour from his voice. “Same as the other one.”
Kit remained perfectly still. “I barely moved.”
“It was enough,” Mara said.
Sera stared at the limb struggling against the growth. “It was standing there.”
“Could have fallen against the wall years ago,” Kit said. “Then everything grew around it.”
The blackened nails scraped across the plaster as the hand opened farther. The arm gained less than an inch before the vines pulled it back, yet the effort continued with slow, stiff contractions through the elbow and shoulder.
Jonah kept his distance from the doorway. “So they lie there looking like part of the room until something living gets close?”
“We’ve seen two,” Mara said. “That’s all we know.”
“Two more than we knew about ten minutes ago,” Jonah replied.
Sera looked towards the shapes around the sofa and cabinet. “And both are far more decayed than the ones outside.”
Kit gave the first infected another uneasy glance. “Still responsive, though.”
Mara looked from the infected lying motionless beneath the chair to the hand still flexing against the wall. “Movement still draws them. That part appears the same.”
Before anyone answered, the hanging fabric beneath the sofa lifted slightly and settled again, turning all four of them towards it.
“Mara,” Sera said, already giving ground towards the hall.
“I saw it,” Mara replied, retreating with her while keeping the crowbar raised.
A faint scrape followed from behind the cabinet, low enough that Mara might have missed it before seeing the bodies hidden elsewhere in the room. Kit heard it too and angled towards the passage.
Jonah backed far enough into the hall to leave the stairs clear. “That smell makes more sense now.”
“So does why Tamsin kept moving,” Kit said.
Mara remained at the sitting-room doorway, watching the vine-covered arm flex against the wall while movement continued beneath the sofa. What she could make out there disturbed her more. The shape seemed to end around the shoulders, with no clear head visible beyond them, yet the fabric covering the body had shifted twice. She could have been reading the ruin badly. The head could have been hidden beneath collapsed cushions or growth, though she no longer trusted what the room appeared to show her. They had entered expecting infected that wandered towards living movement.
