The Dying & The Dead 1: Post Apocalyptic Survival (20 page)

“I
need to find the farm,” she said. “And the Resistance.”

The
trader didn’t speak. Air left his nostril, mixed with blood, and formed a
bubble. When it popped, Heather felt sick. She wondered if she had knocked him
out. She moved closer to him, but she heard his raspy breaths speed up the
closer she got. She realised that he was scared of her, and looking at his
mince-meat face she could understand why.

“They
have someone on the inside,” said Wes, voice weak. “Someone working for the Capita.
Someone close enough to learn things.”

“Who?”

The
trader didn’t speak. All Heather needed was a name. From there she could make
contact. She could learn about their fight and what her part in it could be.
There was nothing they could do to her, she realised. Though they might put her
body in a prison, but there was no dungeon they could keep her mind.

“Damn
it Wes, give me a name.”

He
turned his head to look at her. His face was already beginning to swell and his
eyes looked pathetic. She thought of the people in the beds and felt her
empathy for the trader melt away. Wes opened his mouth.
Just a name,
she
thought.
That’s all I need.

When
he spoke, he didn’t give a name. Instead his face took on a look of defeat.

“I
don’t know,” he said.

17

Ed

Ed was
back in his house, hearing the wind whistle through the cavities. They were in
his dad’s old bedroom this time, one of only a handful of times Ed had been in
it since he’d died. Bethelyn stood at the window and stared out onto a Golgoth
covered by darkness. Ed opened the drawers of his father’s bedside cabinet. He
didn’t know what he was looking for; it was just the first time he’d had the
courage to spend more than a few seconds in there. It only seemed right that he
look at his dad’s things and maybe find a memento to remember the old man by.
When he saw what was in the drawer, he laughed.

“What’s
so funny?” said Bethelyn.

Ed
reached into the drawer and pulled out two candles.

Bethelyn
shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s
an inside joke. Never mind.”

“Guess
we can have some light in here, at least.”

Ed
shook his head. “We can’t light them. They might see.”

Bethelyn
turned away from him and stared out of the window again.

“Did
you just sit in the dark eating cold food before you met me?” she said.

“You
make it seem depressing.”

“I’m
sure it’s way more fun than it sounds.”

In the
distance, toward the village centre near the town hall, was the orange glow of
lamps. In the darkness they couldn’t see the figures of those who carried the
lamps, so it seemed like a parade of ghosts lit their way across the village.

“Who
are they?” said Ed. The strangers had diverted the attention of the infected,
but Ed and Bethelyn hadn’t stayed around long enough to find out who they were.

“Never
seen them before in my life.”

Golgoth
looked so quiet that it seemed only right that they whisper even indoors. It
seemed like the whole island was under a spell of silence and that untold
horror would be visited upon anyone who broke it. In reality, Ed knew that if
he stepped outside now he’d hear the crashing of the tide as it beat against
the island and the groaning of the wind.

“I
knew I saw a ship out there,” he said.

“Maybe
we should go speak to them.”

Bethelyn’s
voice was monotone, as though minute by minute her energy was leaving her. She
looked away from Ed now, but for the last few hours it seemed that even when
her face pointed at his, her eyes looked straight through him.

“They
aren’t friendly,” said Ed.

“How
do you know?”

“I
just know.”

He
thought of the masked men. Their appearance on the island had given Ed and
Bethelyn a chance to escape, but something told Ed that they needed to run away
from the strangers just as much as the infected. Seeing them had confirmed one
thing to him though. Their masks were a nod of approval toward his theory about
the virus.

“Maybe
the new guys brought the infection,” said Bethelyn.

Ed
shook his head. “It was here days before they got here. It was waiting in the
air.”

“What?”

“The
storm, Bethelyn. It didn’t just mess up your roof. The virus is airborne.”

Ed
knew that from where Bethelyn stood she would be able to see the harbour, and
beyond it was the raging sea. Ed’s dad used to bring him to the window when he
was a kid. Before he grew too big, he would lift him up so that he could stare
out across the island. This landscape was all Ed knew, and more than likely all
he’d ever know. Back then his father had been able to name every constellation
that sat in the night sky, and he’d tried to teach them to Ed. He wished he’d
listened.

Night
had come on so suddenly it had taken Golgoth by surprise, though not Ed. It had
always been this way on the island. The sun strained through the clouds and
slowly lit up the mornings like a man grumbling his way out of bed. The
afternoons would see clear skies, and then out of nowhere it would darken. No
doubt if Ed sat outside and stared into the sky for hours he’d be able to watch
the sun fall, but it was amazing how much the onset of night caught the
island’s residents off guard.

“We
need to get down there first light,” said Bethelyn.

“There?”

“The
harbour. I can’t stay here another minute. “

He got
the sensation of being stared at by empty eyes. It was strange how a person
could be present in the flesh but be somewhere else at the same time. Her body
stood across the room from him and leant against the windowsill, arms hugging her
waist, but her brain had travelled to a place he couldn’t follow.

“We’ll
find a way off,” he said. “I’ll try and remember how to sail.”

 “Did
you ever think about leaving when your brother died?” she said.

“Come
on Bethelyn…”

“Just
talk to me. I need this. I need the distraction.”

Distraction
didn’t work. Ed knew that all too well. There was no avoiding something like
this, and the fact that Bethelyn could even talk like that meant that it hadn’t
even begun to sink in yet.

Ed
looked at the floor. Was he really going to talk about himself? He’d kept the
door locked so long he was scared how large the monster inside it had grown. He’d
tried to starve it, but every stray thought was like food being slid under the
doorframe. He took a deep breath and thought about what to say. It was stupid,
but when he opened his mouth he actually felt nervous.

“After
he was gone, people always used to talk about what a hero James was,” he said.
The words came easier than he expected. “They thought it’d make me feel better
or something. People always think they know what’s best for you, like there’s a
user manual to the mind and all it takes is the right combination of words and
someone will magically feel better. The fact was, if my brother was such a
hero, why did he kill himself?”

Bethelyn
jerked back so quickly she almost hit the window.

“I
didn’t know that he – “

Ed
nodded. “As good as. You know he was in the navy, right? He fell for some girl
on the mainland. I never met her, but I know her name. It used to be a swear
word for me. I used to say her name and feel my body fill up with hate so much
that I’d feel like smashing everything in the fucking house.”

“Jesus
Ed, you’re going red.”

“James
was stationed at a naval base on the east coast near Loxbrough and he used to
head into the city on rec time. Think he met her in a pub, or something. By the
time his tour was up and he had to come home, he’d practically glued himself to
her. So when his tour ticked down and we knew he was coming back I thought I
was going to have a best friend again, but instead all I got was a guy who had
something missing. Like not all of him was really there.”

Bethelyn
hugged herself tighter, though it wasn’t cold in the room.

“I
think I remember him coming back,” she said.

“After
the infection broke he used to sit inches away from the TV and flick through
the channels trying to get every scrap of news about the mainland. He was
hoping for something good, but every day it turned to shit. When they finally
pushed the big off switch and the TV’s went south, he went completely fucking
doolally. He couldn’t cope, he was a slob. I tried to talk to him but he wasn’t
my brother anymore. I thought he might have been infected or something, but
pretty soon I realised he wasn’t going to eat me. Part of him was gone though.”

“Sorry,
Ed.”

“So
that’s what happened. A naval ship docked in the harbour to try and barter
supplies and James put on his old navy uniform and got on board. Didn’t matter
that he’d been discharged. Think in his loony mind he was going to smuggle
himself to the mainland and go find her. A few weeks later the ship was back,
except this time the tide brought it in piece by piece. No sign of anyone, no
sign of James.”

He
hung his head. It made him want to go hide somewhere from shame, but he felt
the heaviness of water around his eyes. It felt like he was walking a tightrope
where the slightest push would tip him over, except instead of falling to the
floor he’d be hurtling into a whole mess of emotions that he’d planned on
hiding from forever. If he said anything else it was going to pour out of him.

“Ed.”

Across
the hall was Ed’s room, which he and James had shared for more than a decade.
If he wanted to, he could go in there, prise up the chipped floorboard and find
the time capsule they’d hidden. The whole house was a museum where his family
memories stared back at him like relics. One day he’d been a kid with a mum, a
dad and a brother, and one by one they’d all left him.

He
felt off balance. He knew that his eyes were wet now. He felt a hand fall on
his shoulder and rest there. This was usually the part where he’d shrug it off,
but this time he let it stay. He felt himself let go of everything that he’d
been holding in.

18

Heather

Wes
sat against the wall. Heather had found dry tissue from a shelf underneath the
bathroom sink, and Wes had used it to wipe the blood from his nose and then
plug his nostrils. His face was set in a grimace, and from time to time he’d
throw sneaky glances at Heather when he thought she wasn’t looking. She’d see
him out of the corner of her eye and somehow knew what he was thinking.
He
wants to kill me.

Their
Great Escape had once been a plan with a carefully maintained path, but it had
turned into a muddy road blocked by fallen trees and pitfalls. She was lost in
a maze where her options were leading her into dead ends. She couldn’t go home
because Charles would have ordered it to be staked out. She couldn’t leave the Capita
yet because that would mean travelling, and she couldn’t move with Kim in her
present condition. She would wake up in a few hours, and whatever happened, Heather
couldn’t be outside when she dealt with it.

She
felt different. It was like a switch had been flipped inside her, except that
she didn’t know what the switch did yet. From second to second she bounced from
the verge of a full blown panic attack to feeling the need to smash things.

Wes
glanced over at the window. He looked like a man in a doctor’s waiting room
expecting bad news.

“What
are you still doing here?” said Heather.

Wes
held his hands out in front of him. His skin had always been so clean and soft
and his nails were perfect, yet today his skin was covered in dried blood.

“I’ve
only lived here two years, you know.”

“So?”

“You
never met my wife.”

“I
didn’t know you were married.”

He
licked his thumb and began rubbing the blood off his palm.

“She
died. Then my boy died. We live in a world where everyone dies,” he said. He
nodded over to Kim on the floor. “She’ll die too.”

“Don’t
fucking start.”

“I
still remember the day that I knew things had collapsed. I saw the signs just
like everyone else, but for the longest time I never really believed it. I
remember the exact moment when I pulled my head out of the clouds. Thomas was
only seven months old. We were bottle feeding him, and we had to boil the
bottles. I got up one morning and found that the gas in my mini-stove was out
.
No problem
, I thought. 
Phil next door will have something I can use
.
So I went out of the house, and knocked on my neighbour’s door. I caught my
reflection in the glass on his window and saw a big, dirty beard hanging from
my chin. God knows how long we’d shut ourselves away.”

“I was
going to apologise to Phil for not calling round before now. I’d explain to him
I was just scared. There was no answer, so I opened his door. Soon as I did, I
heard a crying sound. I walked through into the living room and saw Phil on the
floor. His wife was in front of him, crying, and Phil was on his knees with her
hand in his mouth. He held it between his teeth and pulled at the skin between
her thumb and index finger. I remember her on the floor, face white, eyes wide,
almost dead. The fight had left her. She was dying and in shock. And then Phil
turned his head and looked at me. And that’s when I knew.”

“Everyone’s
got a story,” said Heather.

It was
a fact of life now. It was one of those experiences so universal that, despite
being a monumental event, had lost its uniqueness. It was one of those
questions you asked people, like “Where were you when President Ginsberg got
shot on his podium?” Everyone had their own story of how the outbreak had
started for them, and everyone thought their own little emotional tragedy was
unique. Truth was that nobody was special. Nobody’s loss was greater than
anyone else’s. And losing people was no excuse for the way some acted after the
world fell apart.

Wes
carried on undeterred.

“After
that we left our home and got out of the city. We spent the next year or so
moving place to place, cheating death. Got to a point where we got comfortable
with it, and then I made one too many mistakes. My wife and son paid for them,
and for some fucking reason I got to live.”

“This
is the first place I’ve stayed in years. The only halfway stable settlement
I’ve lived since people started eating each other. I hate it. It stinks and
it’s dirty. But you know what, Heather? Now that it comes to it, I don’t want
to leave.”

He
stood up, face wincing in pain with each moment. As he hobbled across the room Heather
felt a pang of guilt, but just as quickly as she felt it, she let herself go
numb. Wes walked to the wall opposite him and started tapping on it. Inch by
inch he moved across, and at one point the sound of his taps became hollow. He
pushed at the wall and a square part of it peeled away. Behind it was a cavity.
Wes reached into it and took out a photograph, which he put in his trouser
pocket. Next he took out a gun.

“You
better think about what to do about her,” he said.

She
knew he was right. Wes was a practical man above everything else, and in this
matter his survival instincts were correct. Somewhere in her mind Heather knew
what she might have to do. She tried to recognise this without letting her real
mind enter the conversation. If she could pry open the door that housed her
survival instincts but shut away every other part of the thing that formed her
persona, she might be able to get through this.

It was
like she was looking through her eyes but watching another person control her
body. There was a smashed bottle next to her on the floor. She took off her
jacket, picked up the bottle and wrapped the fabric around it so that she could
handle it without getting cut. She settled against the wall near her daughter
with the bottle in her hand.

Eric
sat beside Kim, wiped the sweat away from the girl’s forehead and stared at her
with unnatural attention. He held Kim’s hand in his own and stroked her skin
with his thumb. For a second, despite everything, Heather was happy she’d saved
him and felt a rush of affection in her chest.

“Get
over here,” said Heather.

Eric
looked at her and then looked away.

“Get
over here, now.”

She
knew it wasn’t Eric’s fault, but everything had collapsed when she met him. For
so long she’d been frustrated at her own cowardice. She knew what the DC’s went
through and she wanted to help them, but in her selfishness he didn’t dare. She
wished she could have cultivated that selfishness even more, because if she had
then her daughter wouldn’t be lying in a coma on the trader’s floor.

It
wouldn’t be long now. The door in her mind opened and she heard a voice call to
her.
You know what you have to do.
Could she do it? The bottle in her
hand felt too large, like it was swelling and soon she wouldn’t be able to grip
it. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing she could use to…

She
shuddered, and almost dropped the bottle. It was a thought that she didn’t want
to complete.

Noises
drifted through the open window. Wes snapped his head toward it but rather than
trying to see what was happening, he slunk down against the wall and took the
photograph out of his pocket. He looked at it for a few seconds and then sat
still, photo in one hand and gun in the other.

Outside,
infected walked down the street. This would have been enough to worry Heather,
but this scene was even worse. The infected, dozens of them, had bracelets
around their necks. Twenty feet behind them, men in Capita uniforms held
lengths of chains connected to the monsters. Even further back was a sight that
chilled her. Charles Bull rode his horse behind them like a conquering general.
He looked from side to side as he passed each house on the street, and Heather
knew he was looking for only one thing.

People
had come out of their houses now. They stood on the edge of the pavements and
stared, and she saw eyes go wide with surprise as the infected walked toward
them, chains rattling along the tarmac road. One man, jeans unbuttoned as if he
had dressed hastily, rushed toward his front door and waved his arms. Across
from him a teenager settled onto a wall and watched with his hand across his
forehead.

She
saw Charles’s mouth move as he shouted something. The Capita soldiers
approached their infected with careful steps and one by one released their
chains. Let loose, the infected lurched in all directions toward the district
residents. The men and women turned from spectators of the scene to victims of
it, and those who didn’t retreat into their homes were pounced on by the hungry
monsters.

Heather
heard a groan behind her. She turned and saw Kim moving. Heather’s throat
closed up so quickly she thought she might suffocate. She tightened her fists
and felt her nails dig into her skin, but she didn’t care about the pain. She
watched her daughter’s slow movements and she stared at her grey skin.
She’s
infected. She’s one of them.
She tried to shake away the thoughts.

Kim
turned her head to her side and let out a sound that was something between a
cry and a growl. She opened her mouth and coughed a spray of blood onto the
laminate floor. Her eyes flickered now, though Heather couldn’t see her pupils.

Wes
stepped forward, raised his gun to shoulder height and then cocked it with a
click.

“Don’t
you fucking dare point that at her,” said Heather.

She
felt like she could vomit everything in her stomach out onto the floor, and it
still wouldn’t be enough to get rid of the nausea inside her.

“Look
at her, Heather,” he said.

“Put
the damn gun down.”

Eric
stayed against the wall. He eyes darted from Wes to Kim. He looked like he was
torn between rushing to Kim’s side and getting even further away from her. Heather
felt her hands shake. She gripped the bottle tighter.

Kim
gave another weak cough and a sprinkling of red hit the floor. She slowly
raised her head. Her eyelids flickered and her fingers started to curl into her
palm. By the time her eyelids opened, Heather felt like she was going to drop
to the floor. Kim opened her mouth, and Heather expected to hear her groan.

“Mum?”
she said.

She
dropped the bottle to floor, not caring about the sound as it thudded on the
wood. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms tight around her daughter.
She knew she was squeezing too hard but it seemed like one of those times when
there was nothing else she could do. She pressed Kim’s head into her chest and
ran her fingers through her hair. Kim pulled away.

“Mum?”
she said with the weak voice. “You look scared.”

Damn
right she was. She’d just had the single greatest scare in her life. Not even
seeing an infected for the first time had come close. Compared to this, that
had been a happy memory.

Life
went on, but their life was changed now. No matter where they went the Capita
would hunt them, and if they were caught it would be the slowest death
imaginable. Eric, and now Kim since she was clearly immune, would be taken to
the farms where the rich and powerful would drain their bodies. A selfish
thought hit Heather.
Am I immune too?

Someone
screamed outside. Heather got to the window in time to see two infected tearing
apart a little girl while her mother stood at the side, legs paralysed by utter
terror. Charles and two Capita soldiers waited and watched. Another solider,
far enough behind to be out of Charles’s view, turned his head away.

Once
the girl was dead the soldiers steered the flock of infected down the streets.
They went from door to door and barged their way in. Heather knew that the
residents of the trader estate weren’t the focus of Charles’s search. He was looking
for her, and he wouldn’t have long to wait.