Flu (26 page)

    For a moment, neither man spoke. Both just stared at each other, frozen to their seats.

    "It's maybe j-just the dust," Lark said, finally, his voice hoarse and nervous.

    McFall said nothing, simply rolling up his balaclava and wiping his mouth and nose.

    "Seriously, mate," Lark said, slightly softer this time, "it's probably just -"

    But he was interrupted when McFall sneezed again.

    Lark pushed back his chair to dodge the blast.

    McFall turned towards Lark, his mouth upturned in a panicked gurn.

    "Do you think it's just dust, mate?" he asked, eyes damp and leaking through the balaclava. "Really, I mean?" But Lark had no reply. He just sat there, as if still glued to his seat. The magazine still opened beside him at that golf article. Quietly, he reached forward to hand McFall a tissue. McFall accepted it, wiping the corners of his eyes. "It's just the sneezing," he said, his voice cracking. "I'm not crying or nothing…"

    Lark got up slowly. He kept his eyes on McFall as he backed towards the door to the hallway. He didn't leave, though, standing for long moments, staring at McFall, as if disbelieving what was happening.

    "Sorry, mate." He said simply, eyes still wide as if he'd just seen something shocking and unbelievable. "I'm so sorry, mate."

    "It's okay," McFall said, looking down at the table. He lifted the magazine and box of tissues, not knowing exactly why he needed the magazine. He had no more interest in golf than Lark had.

    "I'll get you a beer from the van," Lark said, eyes still wide.

    "That would be nice, mate." McFall said. "I'll just -" he began, but a third sneeze surprised him, causing him to jump and Lark to raise his arms, as if the blast was like poisonous gas. He shook his head, sniffing loudly then coughing to clear his throat. "I'll just be in the patio," he said, finally.

Chapter Twenty One

    "Can you open it?" Karen asked, impatiently.

    "It's welded shut," Pat replied, running a finger over the rough line of the join. It was obvious to them both that whoever had done the job had been under pressure. Nervous, even.

    "But you can still open it," she said, quickly, "We really need to open it." Pat looked at her like a father might look at his nagging daughter. She knew he needed time to think, time to work out the best way to get the job done. Nothing, to a man like Pat, was achieved through impatience. He wasn't one for taking shortcuts.

    He ran his hands over the metal panels bolted across the doorframe of the flat. Karen could see that it had been a rushed job, the bolts only half secured.

    He reached into his tool bag, retrieving a wrench. Karen held the torch so that he could see what he was doing in the poor light. Using the wrench, Pat eased out the third bolt from the panel across the door of flat 23. As predicted, the panel swung away, clinging only to the final bolt on the lower part of the frame. It revealed enough of the door for the two survivors to break into the flat.

    Once inside, Pat reached his own hand out to help Karen past the metal panel. They moved slowly through the hallway, checking the kitchen first. Pat's torchlight revealed nothing unusual, save the metal panels bolted across the windows. A damp stain ran through the wallpaper, just where the cupboards met the wall. The usual stench of decaying food wafted from the fridge, Karen's nose almost accustomed to it, now. A gas cooker stood next to the fridge, its rings tarred with burnt residue. An empty bottle of water lay on the worktop, as if dead.

    Pat slowly opened the door, shining his torch back into the hallway. From her vantage point, Karen thought she could see movement, and it made her jump.

    "What is it?" Pat whispered.

    "I thought I saw something move," Karen replied.

    Pat stepped into the hall, gun pointing alongside the light. His poise reminded Karen of a marine from the footage she had seen on the news. He moved assertively and fearlessly into the hall, ready to pump lead into whatever nasty that presented itself.

    Karen followed him, snapping her own torch into action and trying to emulate Pat's poise with her own handgun. Together they searched the living room, finding nothing of interest. From the quality of furniture in the house, Karen thought that the residents were fairly poor. She noticed a photo sitting on the coffee table by the old television set, lifting it and shining her torch on it.

    "It's a picture of a woman and a little girl," she said, carrying it to Pat. "They look kinda foreign or -" She suddenly tripped over something on the floor, jumping with the shock of it. The photo clipped from her hands, the glass of its frame splintering as it hit the coffee table. She shined the torch down, finding some glass on the floor. A tin of paint sat at her feet beside the broken glass. It seemed someone had been planning to spruce the place up before everything changed and redecoration became the least of their concerns.

    "Jesus, keep it down!" Pat said, irritated.

    "Why?" she said, "I thought they couldn't hear anything." She was referring to the dead, of course. Of their blocked sinuses. Of Pat's theory on how that would mean they couldn't hear very much.

    "You still need to be careful," Pat mumbled grumpily. He seemed guarded to her, more awkward than ever. It was as if he were embarrassed by what had happened before. By what he'd done to her. Karen began to feel a little sorry for him. She began to entertain the possibility that maybe it had been her fault, maybe her constant neediness had made Pat do what he did. Maybe she'd pushed him too far, leaving him with no choice but to lash out at her, lash out, even, at the helicopter that could, for all intents and purposes, have been their salvation.

    She thought back to the church where she'd first taken refuge. Of how she'd shied away when other people tried to protect her. Of how they fought bitterly while she hid, scared and useless. Cowering like a big baby. They had died trying to protect her, died without saying a single thing against her. But Karen wondered if things would have been different were she not around. If they would have managed to survive, managed to keep the dead out and the virus at bay. She began to wonder if she were the one who brought misery to a place. Contaminating everything and everyone she touched, like the flu itself.

    A sudden noise shocked Karen out of her maudlin thoughts.

    "Did you hear that?" she whispered to Pat.

    He nodded silently. He pointed out the living room door and down the hallway, bringing a finger across his lips to silence her. They moved out of the living room, noticing the bathroom staring back at them from the other end of the hall. They moved towards it, both survivors taking care not to cause any noise with their approaching footsteps. The door was closed tight. A sudden knock against it startled both survivors. It was the sound they'd heard from the living room.

    "Okay," Pat whispered. "I think there's one of them trapped in there."

    "We should check," Karen said, "because whatever I heard from outside sounded more human. You heard it yourself, too."

    Pat nodded, another knock confirming his diagnosis of the situation. It was a hollow knock, weak and lethargic. Not frantic, like what Karen would expect from a trapped human. Pat pointed at the door handle with his handgun, standing a safe distance from the door. He motioned to Karen to stand back.

    He fired twice, blowing the handle into pieces which fell onto the carpeted hall floor.

    The door suddenly swung open, revealing the heavily bloodied and bile-stained body of a woman, who stood glaring at them. She moved suddenly toward Pat, but he fired another two shots, splitting her head in the same way he split the door handle. The woman fell to the ground, her body jerking, momentarily, before falling still.

    "Was it the woman in the photo?" Karen asked, realising her heart was racing with the action.

    "Probably," Pat said.

    "I really didn't think the sounds I heard were from… one of them," she said, unable to take her eyes from the body.

    "Okay," Pat said, turning away from the fallen body. "Sure, we'll take a quick look -"

    But he paused, standing stalactite still in the corridor, eyes fixed on something further down. He fell completely silent, and Karen followed his gaze to see why. She noticed a figure in the darkness at the other end of the hallway. She lifted her torch, instinctively, finding the shape of a little girl, probably six or seven years old, looking back at her. Her tiny, chocolate brown eyes were wide and hungry looking. Her mouth and nose were swollen and caked in dry blood.

    Pat looked at her, not seeming to know what to do.

    The child suddenly started to cry, the way normal, human children did. Karen realised it had been this very sound she'd heard from the flat.

    "My God…" Pat said, rubbing his mouth. "She's alive.
Really
alive"

Chapter Twenty Two

    She woke up with a start.

    She'd been dreaming about George and Norman. In the dream, Norman looked frail, about twice his age. He was running awkwardly through the streets of Belfast, as if trying to flee the dead. But it wasn't the dead he was fleeing. It was the living. George, Lark, McFall and herself hunting him. Growling like animals as they gave chase. Foam drooling from their mouths, as if possessed.

    Geri noticed light pouring in from the curtains. It couldn't be that late. She pulled the duvet back, realising that she was still wearing her jeans and t-shirt. She couldn't remember getting into bed. God, she must have been so tired. Slipping on her trainers, she moved quietly out of her room and crept down the stairs. She heard a sound coming from the kitchen. She paused, noticing her heart leaping for a second. Gingerly, she moved into the kitchen to investigate.

    She noticed a man in the patio, but not someone she recognised. He was squat, stocky, with thick, curly hair. He sat calmly at the patio table, drinking beer. He didn't look like an intruder. In fact, he looked comfortable. Almost familiar. She wondered, for a second, if he were someone whom the others had met while she was sleeping.

    She noticed the revolver sitting at the kitchen table. She reached for it slowly, checking, quickly, that it was loaded. Against her better judgement, she moved to open the patio door.

    The man looked up, noticing her.

    "No, don't open it," he said. His voice was familiar.

    Geri froze. On the table was a balaclava. Beside the balaclava was a box of tissues and a magazine. A used tissue lay on the floor beside the table. It was stained with blood. The man sneezed. He followed up the sneeze with a laugh. Tears filled his eyes, and she wasn't sure if they were from sneezing or crying.

    "It's not hayfever," he said, smiling. His smile was warm and attractive, and that surprised her. She had never thought he'd look like this under the woollen mask. She'd thought he'd be ugly, even stupid looking. She'd treated him as if he were ugly and stupid.

    "I'm sorry," she said, pressing her hand against the glass.

    "Don't be," he said, still smiling. He lifted a can of beer from the table. "Lark brought me it," he said, grinning comically.

    Geri smiled back. "What'll you do?" she asked, not sure what else to say. She'd never had much of a rapport with McFall. None of them had, apart from Lark, maybe. There was no point in trying to pretend otherwise.

    "Have another a drink or two," he said, "Lark brought me a few. "He took another swig, burping at the end of it. "Then, when they're done, I was hoping to go out with a bang." He pointed to the revolver in her hand. "All those films you see," he said, looking at the gun as if it was something rare and precious, "tell you that you have to shoot them in the head." He looked up at her, and she could see that his eyes were red and puffed. "I don't want to be one of those things," he said, choking slightly.

    Geri felt a lump gathering in her throat. She didn't want to lose it, not in front of him. It would seem insincere to shed crocodile tears. It would also be selfish. He didn't need that, now. She didn't know what he needed, but it wasn't that.

    "You better go," he said, almost as if sensing her discomfort. "Probably best you leave the house. I think Lark's gone, already. Just leave me that revolver"

    She pressed her hand against the window, again, as a goodbye. It left a clammy print on the glass which blurred her view of his face.

    Geri sat the revolver on the kitchen table then moved through the kitchen into the hallway. Moving back upstairs, she retrieved the Glock handgun Lark had found for her earlier, pausing to pack a few things into a bag. Lifting both bag and gun, she went back downstairs, reaching the front door. She looked out the small window. The Land Rover was still parked where they had left it, just outside the house. Lark had obviously not taken it when he'd left. She thought she could remember leaving the keys in the vehicle. Several of the dead hung around, as if bored. She felt as if they ruined the moment she had just shared, seemingly oblivious to the ill-fated McFall. For some reason, Geri thought they should be doing something different. Bowing their heads in respect. Anything, really, to offer their condolences. Gloating, even. But to just ignore him like they were, carrying on as they always did, seemed indulgently callous.

    She opened the door, making sure to close it behind her. She didn't want those fuckers ruining McFall's last hours. Hovering like hawks over a dying man. One of the dead stirred, moving for her with an aggression she hadn't sensed in them, before. She aimed her Glock and fired, piercing its head with the bullet. A part of its brain split from its head, and it looked surprised, momentarily, before falling to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Another looked up, but seemed reluctant to challenge her. It was as if it were aware of the danger, acting with self-interest. She maintained her aim while moving towards the vehicle. The thing didn't move, still glaring at her suspiciously as she moved. Another one surprised her from somewhere else, but she managed to kick it away while reaching for the passenger door of the Land Rover, firing at it as it stumbled away, blowing out half its chest.