by Ryan Casey
And whenever Jack said “not yet,” he always had a disappointed look on his face, like he knew something Jack didn’t.
He had a point about it being boring, though. It was the monotony that was starting to get to Jack. He was used to busyness going on around him. Kind of craved it, which probably explained why he was a smoker and a heavy drinker.
But he was doing alright without both. Not missing either as much as he thought he would.
Yet.
The craving for a “buzz” was something that had always been with him, and what probably got him arrested four years ago. He’d left prison to go straight into a bus-driving job after that. Started off good—a freshness about the different routes, the different people, the different faces. But soon those routes became second nature. Soon, the faces started to become more familiar, more regular, so much so that Jack knew the people’s stops before he even reached them.
He’d craved something new.
He’d got it, in a way.
“How far off is Morecambe now?” Sam asked.
Sam had a point. They couldn’t be far away. They’d been walking all morning, right through the countryside, which meant they had to get there soon. “Not too far,” he said. “Before nighttime, anyway.”
“Are you not worried about the bad people?” Jenny asked.
Jack gulped. Tried to censor any mention of those bad people. The fact that they hadn’t seen them since last night made them seem less real. Shit—maybe they’d all died out overnight. The three were in the middle of the countryside, so there was no way of telling.
“‘Course I’m worried,” Jack said. “But we’ll handle them. We always do.”
“At least Jeff and Elissa had weapons,” Jenny said.
“We’ll get to Morecambe. We’ll do what we have to.”
“And what if we never find it?”
“We’ll find it,” Jack snapped. He felt rotten right away for snapping. Maybe he wasn’t doing too well off the drink and the smokes after all. He had a dullness in his mouth. Like a craving. Oh shit. He was craving. He needed a fag. He needed—
To get himself the fuck together.
He took a deep breath. Smiled at Jenny. “Sorry. Just, I…”
“Cigarettes?” she said.
Jack frowned. “How did you know?”
“Mum got the same whenever Simon took her cigarettes away. He was trying to get her to stop because he said they were bad for her, and she always let him take them away. But then she’d always go mad and look everywhere trying to find them after that.”
Jack laughed. “Sounds like Simon’s an intelligent bloke.”
“He was,” Jenny said.
She looked at the ground.
There was a sadness about Jenny’s words. The way she moved. Like she was just coming to terms with her losses. Like being out here all alone reminded her of all she had left.
And Jack was just going to drop them off and leave them in Morecambe.
“They aren’t gone,” Jack said, as they reached the end of the country road.
Jenny frowned. “But they—”
“Just because they… they passed away doesn’t mean they’re gone. They’re still alive in our memories.” He tapped the side of his head. “Still alive in here. Just think of… I dunno. Funny times with your mum and Simon. And if they make you laugh, make you smile, you know they’re still alive inside your head.”
The way both Jenny and Sam broke into a smile reassured Jack that he’d passed on some good advice, even if he felt like he’d been spouting bullshit as he said it.
They checked the next country road. A little wider. Lines in the middle. Slight pavements either side. They followed it around. Followed it, still in the silence, as the sun drifted overhead, as morning became afternoon.
“Where do they all go? The bad people?” Sam asked.
“Thought you’d know, know-it-all,” Jenny said.
“Just because I saw things when I was asleep doesn’t mean you can be mean to me.”
“Woah, woah,” Jack said. “Easy, kids. Sam, the truth is, we have no idea.”
He looked from side to side. Squinted ahead at the country road. The wind was picking up. He could smell salt in the air. A seaside smell.
Morecambe was nearby.
“We’re almost there. That’s all I know right now.”
They headed further down the country road. Passed some dead seagulls. Dead rats. Dead mice. The smell was bad, but it was bearable after a few steps. There were no insects buzzing around the animals. Nothing eating them. Disease would spread if they just stayed there, and the rotting stench would just get worse. Not something pretty to imagine.
“Look! The Polo Tower!”
Just ahead, as they turned a curve in the country lane, Jack saw what Sam was looking and pointing at. The Polo Tower. A viewing platform that overlooked all of Morecambe, over the Irish Sea. Why anyone would want to look over Morecambe was beyond Jack, but that wasn’t the point here. The point was that they were there. They were in Morecambe. The Happy Mount Park public shelter was nearby.
“Stay close to me,” Jack said.
They walked into the suburbs surrounding Morecambe. Took the first right that would lead to Happy Mount Park to avoid the main centre. Jack looked around. Looked at the houses, the buildings. Ditched bicycles lay stranded on street corners. Windows and doors were smashed, caved in.
But it was still so quiet. Still so silent.
They picked up their pace. Picked up, Jack looking from side to side, as the trees of the park came into view. Picked up to a jog, as the green sign with a big smiley face emerged in front of them.
“This is it,” Jenny said. “This is… this is actually it.”
Jack could feel his heart racing as they got closer to the green metal fences. Felt the sweatiness of his children’s hands in his tight grip. Through the fence, he swore he could see people. Tents. Shit. This was actually it. They were here.
He stopped just before the fences.
Slowed down.
Crept towards them.
“What is it?” Jenny asked. “What do you see?”
Sam tried to get on his tiptoes, but he couldn’t get a proper view through the gaps in the fence either.
At first, Jack felt a relief. A huge wave of relief smack him in the chest when he saw the people, saw the men, the women, the children, all crowded around the swings, the trampolines, outside the ice cream van.
And then he realised that they were all on the ground.
Lying on the ground in neat rows. Stripped naked. Holes in their heads.
“What is it? Are there people there?”
A dread replaced Jack’s relief. His heart continued to pound, but it pumped fear and anxiety through him now.
Dead naked teens sprawled out on the trampolines.
Pensioners stripped down to their wrinkly skin and bleeding out into the paddling pool.
The gunshot wounds in between their eyes. This couldn’t be the work of runners. Something had happened here.
“We need to get away,” Jack said. He backed up. Arms tingled. He heard a door creaking somewhere in one of the nearby houses. Looked around, swore he saw movement in the corner of his eye.
Sam and Jenny looked on in confusion. “But Jack—”
“We need to go. Right now.”
He grabbed his kids by their arms. Pulled them away back in the direction they’d come from.
That’s when he saw the soldier pointing a rifle right at them.
Watching them with his glazed eyes.
Twitching.
TWENTY-FOUR
“Stay behind me. Don’t move a muscle.”
Jack kept his hands behind him. Kept them there so he could feel Sam and Jenny. His heart pounded. The breeze wafted the smell of death from Happy Mount Park over him, leaving a sickly taste in his mouth.
In front of him, a soldier stood with a gun pointed at him.
The soldier was wearing green
combat uniform. He had a helmet on. He was pointing a long black assault rifle at them. But he wasn’t speaking. And that was the weirdest thing about all this—the silence of the guy.
The way his arms shook, like he’d never handled a gun in his life.
The way his glassy eyes twitched.
Jack took a step to his left. Looked over at the hedges at the side of them. Thick. Impossible to penetrate.
He looked to the right. Saw the narrow road leading to the Morecambe promenade. Heard the sea crashing against the concrete front. He didn’t want to go that way either. Didn’t want to risk exposing himself and his children in such an open area.
But the only viable route had a man with a gun blocking the way.
“Just… just let us leave,” Jack said. His voice sounded croaky. Not half as assertive as he’d planned. He used to be able to strike fear into people with his voice. Used to be able to shout at them to get the fuck on the ground when he was robbing their house, stealing from their shop.
Right now, he knew exactly how they felt when he’d shouted at them.
He felt their fear.
The soldier kept his gun aimed at Jack. His eyelids twitched. His finger shook, tapped on the trigger.
Jack backed up further to his kids. Shifted to the right. They’d have to go onto the promenade. Have to find a way around this guy. Something wasn’t right. He definitely wasn’t a normal soldier. But the runners—they couldn’t use weapons, could they?
He thought back to the things he’d seen through Happy Mount Park fences. The holes in the heads of the stripped-down kids, men, women, all of them. And then he thought of the runners he’d seen out on the road. Thought of the way they carried hammers, knives.
What was stopping them carrying guns? They weren’t zombies, after all.
He shifted a bit further to the right. The runner kept on watching him. Glazed, but watching. Like he knew he was there but he couldn’t figure out what to do, how to act.
He picked up his pace a little bit more. Made sure his kids stayed the other side of him. Kept his eyes on the weird soldier at all times. They could get away. They just had to get behind a car, hide behind a door. They could do this.
A tug on Jack’s arm. A frightened little mumble.
He looked to see what Sam wanted.
When he saw, his stomach sank to depths it’d never before reached.
In the road leading to the promenade, figures were standing. Four of them. Three women and one man, all in their thirties.
Or had been in their thirties, judging by the way the blonde woman’s eyes were rolled back into her skull, the way their fingers were all contorted as they carried shards of flesh-piercing glass.
He looked back at the soldier. The soldier tilted its head in a way that must’ve been uncomfortable. Peered over at its friends. Dropped its gun, ever so slightly.
The runners in the alleyway creaked their necks. Sniffed the air, started shifting towards Jack and the kids.
Jack tensed up inside. He had to act. He had to move.
“Keep hold of my hands,” he whispered.
He turned to focus on the soldier, gun still slightly dropped as it figured out who its mates were, whatever it was doing.
And he sprinted at him as fast as he could.
It took a few seconds for the soldier to look back at him. When he did, he blasted a round of bullets towards Jack. Jack felt them whizz past. Felt them fizz through his hair, but the soldier runner clearly didn’t know how to fire this gun properly. Bullets shot up in the air, over Jack’s head.
He kept moving towards the soldier, the sounds of the other runners’ footsteps getting closer. When he reached him, he went into him at full pelt with his right shoulder. Felt the wind fall out of his lungs, felt a bone crack in his chest as he went tumbling to the ground.
He grabbed the rifle. Didn’t even look into the soldier’s eyes properly before filling his head with bullets.
He turned around. Pointed the heavy rifle at the four runners sprinting towards them from the alleyway, saliva wafting from all their mouths. He aimed at the ones in the middle first, took a few shots and a few knock-backs of the gun to get them down. The gun made a racket, too. A racket that others would hear. A racket that he couldn’t risk for too long.
His kids whimpered as they stood behind him, Jack backing away slowly. Two runners were still remaining—a man and a woman. He fired at the man. Tried to fire at him in his stupid fucking face, but the bullets kept on missing. And then the blonde woman made ground and he tried to fire at her but he just kept on hitting her arm, which just angered her more and more, like she was a wasp trapped in a jar.
He took a deep breath of the putrid air. Lifted the gun again, pointed at them.
Fired at the man. Hit him straight in the head. Sent him collapsing to the ground, his skull cracking like an Easter egg.
He didn’t have time to deal with the woman.
She flew into him. Knocked the wind out of him. Scratched at his face, blood dripping from her arms as she tried to get a grip of his neck.
He struggled around with the gun. Tried to push her away, but she was pinning him down too well. He tried to head-butt her, but he couldn’t reach.
Her hands got tighter around his throat.
Her eyes got more and more bloodshot, her gasps angrier and angrier.
He tried to say something—some final words of advice to his children—when he felt blood trickle down his face, felt the grip around his neck loosen.
He blinked. Struggled for breath. Felt more warmth drip down his face, heard a gasp not like anger but like pain.
And then he saw Jenny at the runner’s side. A shard of glass pressed into its temple.
She wiggled the glass around inside the runner’s head. Wiggled it, cringed and winced as she did. The runner twitched. Twitched, tried to struggle as blood pooled out of its head and covered Jack, but it was no use.
It fought for its life as it fell to the ground with the glass wedged firmly in its temple.
It looked right at Jack. Reached out for him.
Jack swore he saw tears in its much less glassy eyes.
And then the expression dropped from the runner’s face completely and it let out a final breath.
Jack stood up. Stood up, realised he was shaking, realised his vision was blurred, his hearing was muffled. He looked at his kids. Looked at Sam, wide-eyed and staring at his sister in amazement. Looked at Jenny, blood on her hands and her jaw shaking.
He heard a noise in the distance. A shouting or a crying from over in Happy Mount Park.
“Come on,” he said.
He checked the gun. Saw it was empty. Thought about keeping it, but chances of running into any more ammo in gun-hating Britain were low, and it was heavy so it would slow him down.
Regrettably, he placed the empty gun on the road, took the hands of his kids and ran back down the way they’d come from, as the gasping and the crying got louder and louder, closer and closer…
TWENTY-FIVE
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Jack crouched down opposite Jenny. They stopped in a little cabin just outside of town which looked like it hadn’t been entered for decades. It had a musty, damp wood smell about it. The kind of smell that reminded Jack of camping with the lads back when he was in his twenties. Plenty of booze, plenty of fags and drugs… perfection, at the time.
Jenny sat with her knees pressed against her chin. Her elephant pyjamas were covered with dirt and blood. Her eyes had welled up completely, and she’d been totally silent since glassing the runner in the head earlier that day.
“Because if you want to… you know you can.”
She didn’t even nod in response.
Sam looked on at Jenny, at his dad. He looked worried. Jack moved over to him. Ruffled his hair. “How you holding up, soldier?”
Sam yawned. The sound of rain pattered against the wooden roof of the cabin. “Just tired,” Sam said. “And hungry.
I thought we were getting food at Happy Mount Park. But now we’re not I… Just hungry.”
Jack swallowed the lump in his throat. “We’ll get you some food soon.” Truth was, he couldn’t promise anything. He wasn’t sure he was in a position to be promising his kid anything right now. The Happy Mount Park shelter was gone. People had been killed there. Any distant hope of food, water, shelter, all that was gone too.
All he had was a little card for White Moss Caravan Park in his pocket that Jeff and Elissa had left with him.
“Maybe we can go see Thomas again? Maybe his mum and dad won’t mind if we stay with them?”
“They’re dead,” Jenny said.
Her voice took Jack by surprise. He looked at her, still with knees tucked into her chin, still staring blankly at the concrete floor of the cabin.
“Don’t say that,” Sam said.
Jenny shrugged. “Everyone dies now. And we’re gonna die too. That’s just… that’s how it is. We’re gonna die like—like Simon and like Mum and like—”
Jack went over to her. Wrapped his arm around her. Held her close. She cried onto his chest. Clutched him tightly as she let it all out.
“Ssh,” he said. He stroked her greasy hair. “No one’s gonna die here. None of us. We’ve made it this far. We’re tough. We’re survivors. Hmm?”
Jenny sobbed some more. Sobbed hysterically, in a way that Jack had never seen her open up before. “I just… I just want… want my mum.”
He held her closer to his chest.
Sam came over. Put his arm around his sister. Snuggled in to Jack for a hug too.
They all sat there and they all cried as rain pattered against the roof of the cabin.
As horrible as it was seeing his children so upset, a warmth sparked inside Jack. A realisation of who he was: the father of these children. The man that was here to protect them. To keep them safe.
And that was his purpose now. His purpose wasn’t just to get them somewhere to fob off on somebody else. His purpose—his new goal in life—was to protect his children with his life.
Because they were his life now.
They were what he was living for.