Tabitha (27 page)

‘Are you sure?’
Liv called back, her voice shaking as she ran.

‘Do it!’ he
said, turning to aim his rifle at the spiders gaining fast. ‘Piss off!’ he
yelled at the spiders, his body shaking as he rattled crackling shots into the
horde.

Out of town, Will and Tabitha dragged
Jim tired and gasping up the hill towards the castle. Liv trailed behind them,
picking off the spiders that came scuttling too close.

‘I’m running out
of bullets!’ she shouted over her shoulder, plugging another spider that came
racing towards her out of the creeping horde.

‘We’re almost
there!’ Will yelled back, pulling Jim on up the steps. ‘Chris! Get the gate!
Chris!’ Chris ran down from the castle wall and pulled the iron gate open for
them, and stood there watching them while Will and Tabitha helped Jim up the
last few steps.

‘Help us then!’
Will yelled at him.
Shellshocked
in the sudden panic,
Chris came forward to help Jim inside.

‘The dog,
Chris!’ Will shouted. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he had to let go of Jim to grab Laika’s
collar, and pulled her barking and snarling back into the courtyard before she
got out.

‘Stop, stop,’
Jim gasped, shaking his arm free from Chris to sit down in the courtyard.

‘Jim, keep hold of
the dog mate. Stop it running out,’ said Will, panicked. He ran back for the
gate. He stopped and looked back. Chris was just standing there with Jim.
‘Fucking
do
something, Chris!’

‘Do what?’ Chris
shouted back. Will yelled in a rage and ran back down the steps onto the hill.

‘Liv!’ Tabitha
yelled, running back down the hill for her. Liv had fallen behind. The spiders
were gaining on her faster than she could climb the steps. Tabitha watched in
horror as one of the spiders jumped on Liv and knocked her down. Tabitha
screamed and leapt down the steps, half-tumbling, and ripped the spider away
from Liv where she thrashed on the ground.

‘Liv!’

‘I’m fine, I’m
ok!’ she said, her voice muffled through her visor. There were vicious cuts and
scratches down her breastplate, but the claws hadn’t gotten through.

‘Go!’ said
Tabitha, putting a bullet in the spider as it scuttled back over. ‘Come on!’
she yelled, dragging Liv beside her.

‘Is she alright?
Is she ok?’ said Will desperately, running down the hill.

‘She’s fine, get
her back inside!’ Tabitha replied, half-dragging Liv up the steps for Will to
help her. Chris opened fire on the spiders from the curtain wall above them.
‘Go!’ she yelled to Will. Tabitha shot another spider that raced up the
hillside on their right, and followed on behind Liv and Will as they struggled
exhausted up the hill. The spiders crept up the steps below them; a stalking
deathly mass.

‘Fuck you!’
Tabitha yelled at them, squeezing the trigger on her rifle. She laid into the
horde with a rattling thunder of gunshots, blinking at the flurry of bullet
cartridges that clacked and spat from her rifle. Dead spiders tumbled away;
more crept up towards her. She dropped the empty magazine from her gun and
slammed in another with a click. She kicked a spider away and opened fire
again, punching blood-burst bullet holes into the chittering swarm. The
scuttling spiders shrieked and bled and dropped dead at her feet as she held
back the silver tide.

‘Tabitha!’ Will
yelled back to her, helping Liv through the castle gate. Tabitha ran from the
swarm at her heels and sprinted on up the stone steps. Muscles burning, she
staggered through the stone arch and back into the courtyard. Will swung the
tall barred gate shut after her, slamming the bolt across with a ringing clang.
The spiders smashed against the solid bars like a bursting car crash; rabid and
shrieking and locked outside.

‘We’re all in!’
Liv yelled to Chris. ‘Stop shooting, we’re all in!’ Tabitha backed away from
the gate as the spiders’ legs flailed for her through the iron bars. Their
bodies were too big to get through. Liv pulled her helmet off and let it drop
to the ground with a plastic knock, bending down and gripping her knees to get
her breath back.

‘You saved my
life,’ she said breathlessly, looking up at Tabitha in disbelief. Tabitha
pulled her plastic visor up, grinning and high on adrenaline. She felt the deep
ancient thrill of cheating death; the best high in the world. Laika whined and
wriggled away from Jim to be with her. Her new family stood there exhausted on
the courtyard, safe and sound around her. She hadn’t felt this happy in a long
time. Her banner rippled in the wind behind them, up on the wall of the keep.
The Ghosts. A sudden starving hunger made her dizzy. The next moment, she
blacked out and hit the cobbles.

‘Take small
sips,’ said Will, putting a glass of water in Tabitha’s shaking hands. They’d
lain her down on a nest of cushions beside the fireplace in the keep. Laika came
straight over once they were inside, and insisted on fussing over Tabitha and
lying down beside her.

‘Ghosts was
actually a good name,’ said Chris, looking at her pale face. ‘She’s the same
colour as that bed sheet hanging outside.’

‘Chris, why
don’t you go upstairs before I actually
sh
-shoot
you?’ said Liv.

‘That’s too
quick,’ said Tabitha, sipping her water. ‘I wouldn’t get to beat him to death.’

‘Wow,’ said
Chris, looking around at them. ‘Is that normal, for someone to say things like
that?’

‘Oh, I’d be
holding you down while she did it,’ Liv assured him.

‘Chris, go
upstairs. Please,’ Will growled.

‘Strange that I
never got
death threats
before she came along,’ said Chris, on his way
upstairs.

‘Well you’re
b-being such a dick lately that I’d get used to them, to be honest,’ said Liv,
watching him go. The others visibly relaxed once Chris was out of the way, and
settled down around the table with exhausted sighs. A tired silence draped
itself over the room.

‘How are you
doing, lass?’ Jim said eventually.

‘I’ve never felt
like this before,’ Tabitha slurred lethargically, taking a cold sip of water.
‘So drained, I mean.’ She could barely move the glass up to her lips. Laika’s
body felt warm against her leg.

‘You n-need to
eat,’ said Liv, worried. ‘I’ll get you some soup. Or m-maybe something plain,
like crackers.’

‘I don’t think I
could keep them down,’ Tabitha replied, feeling her stomach twist. Or whatever
it was her stomach had turned into. ‘I’ll try to eat tomorrow. I just need some
rest, really.’

‘Ok hun,’ said
Liv, setting a fresh glass of water down by the fireplace for her. ‘I think
we’re all getting an early night tonight anyway. It’s been a long one.’

‘Definitely,’
said Tabitha, groaning as she sat back on the pillows.

‘Do you need a
cover?’ said Will, bringing another sheet over for her.

‘No, thank you,’
said Tabitha, smiling with tired eyes. ‘You’ve all done more than enough for me
since I got here. You guys must be sick of looking after me.’

‘Not at all,’
Will assured her. ‘You’ve done plenty for us too, don’t forget. And anyway,
we’re a family now,’ he said, putting the rolled-up cover down beside her. ‘We
look after each other. That’s what families do.’

24

Tabitha woke up peacefully. The pale
glow of dawn lit the arrow-slit windows and the edges around the keep door. Jim
snored upstairs. Laika let out a sleeping sigh as Tabitha stroked her head. She
thought about Mog, and missed him terribly. She imagined him sitting squat and
grumpy by the bedroom door, waiting for food. Or curled up sleeping at the end
of the bed, a furry philosopher lost in thought. Should she have just abandoned
him like that? What else could she do though, walk him around on a lead
wherever she went? She smiled at the thought. He’d be better off on his own
anyway. Besides, she hadn’t seen any empty cat skins on her travels. He’d be
alright. He was a cat. Tabitha’s leg felt white-hot where Laika had been
pressed against her all night. She got up carefully to leave Laika where she
was. As she headed outside though, her dog was right behind her.

‘Morning, dog
face,’ she said quietly, letting Laika push past her legs to yawn and stretch
outside. Tabitha breathed the dawn air deep. The breeze felt summer-cool on her
skin; birds sang to the infant daylight. Laika padded around the courtyard to
follow a smell. She didn’t like keeping her dog cooped up in the castle grounds
like this, but it wasn’t safe outside the walls. Straight away, Laika went over
and squatted down over the dewy grass in the garden.

‘I’ll leave you
to it,’ Tabitha told her. She climbed the steps up onto the curtain wall, and
watched the mist clinging to dips in the hills outside town. Birds fluttered
between the trees in the park below the walls. She saw dead silver shapes lying
there too, shining damp with dew in the rising sun.

‘Morning,’ Will
called down from the top of the keep. ‘I’ll be down in a tick.’ Tabitha smiled
and watched him disappear from the roof. She turned back to the curtain wall
and the dead spiders below, and let the sun wake her up a little. The surviving
horde was out there beyond the park somewhere; scattered and lurking in town.
She got lost in her thoughts for a little while, wondering what might have
happened yesterday if things had gone differently. Like if Jim had fallen in
town, or if she hadn’t reached Liv in time down there in the park. It didn’t
bare thinking about; not with all the grief and guilt already gnawing away
inside her for the people she’d lost. Laika got up from her feet to greet Will
as he climbed the steps onto the wall; Tabitha was glad for the distraction
from her thoughts.

‘It’s beautiful,
isn’t it?’ said Will, watching the mist fade around the park. Further out
beyond the trees the fog still lurked like a ghostly shroud; a lingering glow around
the crooked houses and the old church steeple.

‘You’d never
know we were running for our lives down there yesterday,’ Tabitha replied.
Laika lay down again by her feet, watching a blackbird intently in the garden.
‘I thought you’d still be in bed this early,’ said Tabitha.

‘Nah, couldn’t
sleep,’ he replied, leaning on the worn metal rail beside her. ‘I’ve had our
next mission on my mind.’

‘Already? What’s
the plan?’

‘I want to go out
and look for survivors, and bring them back here,’ he said. Tabitha looked away
from him at the town laid out below. She thought about the swarm, waiting
somewhere in that warren of streets. They’d only just escaped the spiders with
their lives. Why was he so keen to risk everything again so soon?

‘I think,’
Tabitha began, looking for the right words. What did she think? That it was a
bad idea, that someone could die? A lifetime of agreeing with people made the
truth hard to say.

‘Just tell me
honestly,’ he said, with a shrug and a smile.

‘It’s a really
bad idea,’ she blurted out. Speaking her mind always had a new thrill to it.

‘Of course it
is,’ Will said happily. ‘So was getting the guns. And the riot gear. But we
managed it. And now we’re in a better position because of it.’ He sneezed at
the bright sunlight.

‘Bless you,’
Tabitha chipped in.

‘Thanks,’ he
chuckled, after another. ‘So yeah, I want us to use our position now to help
other people. And then grow the Ghosts to help even more people after that.’

‘Well, it’s a
good reason to go out there again, I guess,’ she said, watching a cackling
magpie flutter down to the field below. ‘But to be honest, I’m more worried
about us five. I just don’t want to lose anyone else.’

‘Me neither,’
Will replied. ‘But we just can’t afford to stand still. We have to keep this
momentum going, or else we’ll just be treading water here for the rest of our
lives.’

‘Aren’t you
afraid though?’ said Tabitha.

‘Oh, I’m
terrified,’ he admitted. ‘But fear’s just as bad for us as the spiders are.
There’s a trick though, to get past that fear. Do you know what it is?’ Tabitha
looked at him, and shook her head. ‘The truth is, we’re already dead. Like
ghosts,’ he said, pointing a thumb at the banner behind them. ‘As soon as we
accept that, we can really start living. And helping people.’

‘I don’t think I
understand,’ Tabitha replied.

‘Well, it’s
simple,’ he said. ‘I could die right now just by tripping and falling down
those steps. Jim could die of a heart attack while he’s lying in bed, god
forbid. Or yeah, a thousand spiders could some climbing up the walls here and
drink our insides out, and there’s nothing we could do about it. There’s a
million ways to die, just like that. My first day up here taught me that, when
I got away from that spider by the skin of my teeth. I mean just look at the
world now. Just like that, death can come for all of us.’

‘That’s really
grim,’ Tabitha chuckled, running her rough metal palm against the stone wall.

‘It doesn’t have
to be,’ he said. ‘You just accept that your end’s coming, no matter what you
do. I think this’ll all be easier if we just get comfortable with the idea, do
you know what I mean? Death’s a guarantee; it’s only a matter of time and
place. With that kind of thinking, we can kill our fear. And then we can go
back out there stronger, every day, and
fight
back
. And live a life that people are going to remember us for.’

‘You mean like
becoming heroes,’ said Tabitha.

‘
Exactly
.
And I’d sooner go down fighting, trying to help other people. Not holed up
starving in a castle, trying to hide away from the world. Not that I’m naming
anyone.’

‘No, of course
not,’ said Tabitha, smiling. They watched the silent park for a moment.

‘So,’ he said,
picking at the peeling black paint on the rail. ‘Going back out there to find
survivors. Is it do-able, or have I just gone insane?’ Tabitha looked out at
the wild world. Yes, it was a stupid idea. And yes, any of them could die, for
the sake of finding a survivor or two out there. But… she was a survivor herself.
And they’d taken her in without a second thought.

‘I don’t know
what I would have done if I hadn’t found this place,’ she said, looking out at
the world beyond the wall. ‘I probably would have lost my mind along the way.
Driving all around the country until something finally killed me. That would’ve
been the rest of my life. Short and scary.’ Will nodded. She was one of them
now, Tabitha told herself. Part of the family. One of the Ghosts. It was a daft
name really, for a group of misfits playing soldiers. But she clung to the idea
all the same. She held onto the idea of them because the new world was a
violent mess, and this was the one thing that had given her life any meaning
since she’d lost everything.

‘You guys gave
me something to feel hopeful about, for the first time since all of this
started,’ she said. Will smiled.

‘And do you want
other people to feel that hope as well?’ he said.

‘Of course,’ she
replied. ‘It’s the best kind of feeling, especially now.’

‘Except, people
won’t come to us like you did,’ he replied. ‘I mean, what were the chances of
you finding a car that still worked? A million to one?’

‘Probably,
yeah,’ she said with a smile.

‘There’s other
people out there, I know it,’ he said. ‘They’re scared and hungry, and they
can’t get to us. They don’t even know we exist. But we can go out there and
find them, and bring them back here and keep them safe. We’ve got all the gear,
and we’ve got this place to protect them. That’s why I want us to go back out
there again. As dangerous as it is.’ Tabitha looked out at the world again, as
the mist over town shrank away under the bright sunlight. Her hand went to her
mum’s ribbon tied on her belt. She remembered what Will had said the other day,
as corny as it was; the Ghosts were rising. More survivors… more Ghosts. A
tribe. An army.

‘Let’s do it,’
she said. ‘Let’s go out there and find them.’

‘Fantastic,’
Will replied, beaming.

‘So when do we
start?’ she said.

‘Well… I was going
to suggest that we leave it for a few days, until you’re feeling better after
your blackouts,’ Will replied. ‘But I don’t think that’s going to happen
somehow.’ Tabitha smiled, and shook her head.

‘Nope. We’re
going today,’ she said.

‘
Today
?’
Will replied. ‘Well, I might need to see what the others think about that
first,’ he said with a grin. ‘But personally, I’m all for it. Get back up on
the horse and all that.’ Tabitha smiled. ‘Well, it sounds like Liv’s up,’ he
said, hearing a cough inside the keep. ‘I’ll go and ask her if she’s up for
another mission. Wish me luck.’ Tabitha smiled and watched him go, and turned
back to the world outside the castle.

‘What do you
think, dog face?’ she said. Laika nuzzled her hands and licked her fingers as
Tabitha crouched down beside her. ‘I bet you think we’re insane, don’t you?’
she said, ruffling Laika’s sides. ‘Mind you, you probably thought people were
insane to start with.’ Laika broke into a play fight, and went open-mouthed for
Tabitha’s arms. Laughing, Tabitha pushed her away, and knelt down to wrestle
with her on the wall. Fending off Laika’s attacks, she pinned her collie down
gently on her back. Paws dangling, throat bared, Laika lay there with total
acceptance that Tabitha was in charge. She ran her grey hands through the thick
white fur on Laika’s chest, and wished more than anything that she could feel
it between her fingers. Laika sat up panting and smiling, probably wondering
when breakfast was coming. Tabitha knew the feeling. Already she felt that same
gaping hunger coming on inside her, draining her. It cramped her stomach and
left a hollow feeling in her throat. And yet the thought of eating anything
made her want to retch, like it was all rotten flesh or something. Suddenly it
dawned on her, a thought so terrifying that it seemed to slide cold and wet
down her back. It’d been weeks now. If she couldn’t force some food down soon,
and keep it down… she probably wasn’t going to be around for much longer.

‘I’ll be
alright,’ she told Laika absently, reassuring herself more than anything. ‘I’ll
just keep trying. There’s bound to be something I can eat.’ Laika got up and
shook her fur out, wagging her tail by Tabitha’s side. ‘Anyway, mission number
three today,’ she told Laika, stroking her under the chin. ‘Wish us luck.’

‘Is this really
necessary?’ said Liv, taking the last bits of firewood from the car boot and
carrying it across the moor. They’d spotted the wood stacked up outside a DIY
store on their drive out of town, and parked up hurriedly to cram it into the
car.

‘Of course,’
Will replied, spacing the wood and newspaper out over the rotting skins. They’d
driven back out to the moors where they’d found the dead army patrol the other
day. Will had insisted on giving the soldiers a proper funeral. They’d forced
Jim to stay back at the castle and rest today, since he was limping about on
sore legs after yesterday’s chase. None of them doubted his spirit, but Will
had to explain to him that if he couldn’t walk around very well today then he
couldn’t really run for his life if it came to it. Jim had taken it with good
grace, and set to work in his allotment instead. Chris had opted to stay back
at the castle again, despite the free space in the car. Will had left him with
loud, angry instructions to weed the paths, brush the courtyard and scrub the
outhouse toilet before they got back.

Liv dropped the
last few bits of timber onto the pile of skins with a knocking clatter.

‘Should be
enough here,’ said Will, spreading the pieces around. Tabitha fished the plastic
cigarette lighter out of her hoodie pocket and handed it to him.

‘Did you put
some of those lighter blocks in here?’ Will asked her, crouching down by the
empty corpses.

‘All of them,’
Tabitha replied.

‘Well, at least
we know it should catch,’ he said brightly, cupping the lighter flame in his
hands.

‘That’s a-all of
it,’ said Liv, stuffing the last few bits of newspaper down between the
timbers. Will put the lighter flame to a wedge of newspaper. He tossed it into
the middle of the pile, and stepped back as the flames crept out into the wood
and the lighter blocks. The three of them stood back and watched the fire take
hold. The greying skins became shrouded in flames and floating shreds of
blackened paper.

‘We should s-say
something,’ Liv suggested over the crackling fire, staring at the grim scene.