by Ryan Casey
“Are we going to help him?” Sam asked. “He… We can help some people, can’t we?”
Jack’s thoughts raced. What was he going to do: just leave this guy outside to die in the middle of the night?
But shit. This guy could be anybody. Jack could be exposing his kids to the company of a lunatic.
And with what had happened with Thomas—with how he’d suddenly turned into a runner—who was to say that this guy wouldn’t do the same?
“Please help.” The guy’s voice. Outside the caravan. “I… Please. I’ve walked so far.”
Jack peeped out of the curtain again. Saw the light outside the window. The runners would be here soon. They’d be here for him, and then they’d come for all of them.
He had to take a chance.
Take a risk.
Otherwise, what was he? What did he have left if he couldn’t help a fellow human out?
“Fuck it,” he said, sighing. He stepped over to the cabinet. Tensed, pulled it aside. Unlocked the door.
He opened it up. Stepped onto the concrete step. Saw the guy getting closer.
“First thing you do is you turn that light off right this second.”
The guy’s smile twitched. “Oh thank you. You—you saviour. You—”
“Turn the fucking light off right this second.”
He fumbled around. Nodded fast, then flicked the light off, enshrouding them all in darkness. “I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t know—”
“You can start by getting inside and taking all your clothes off. Show you’re not a threat. Show you’ve no weapons.”
A silence from the man. He stopped walking.
“It’s that or I kill you right here, right now,” Jack said. Didn’t like to have to threaten the guy like this, but he had to be certain he could trust him. He had to be sure this guy wasn’t a threat to his kids.
“But I—”
“Your choice. Make it in the next three seconds.”
Another slight pause. More fumbling.
“Time’s up—”
“Okay. Okay.” The man limped to the concrete step. Jack looked around outside. Heard trees shaking in the breeze. The howling had stopped. Everything was so quiet. So desolate.
The man limped up the steps. Feet were bleeding. Hands were covered in blood too. Looked like he’d been through a rough time.
He put a foot down on the caravan doormat.
Jack held out a hand. Stopped him from entering. “Your name?”
The man smiled. Showed his worn-down teeth. “Rodrigo. Rodrigo Pritchard.”
He stepped into the caravan and Jack locked the door behind him.
THIRTY-ONE
Rodrigo Pritchard can’t believe his luck when the friendly man lets him inside his caravan.
Lets him in the caravan with his kids.
His lips quiver as he takes off his shirt. As the man pulls down his trousers, searches him for weapons. He inhales fast. He can even feel stinging in the corners of his eyes.
He has become very good at practising fear. His dad gave him enough of the real thing that practising was no hard work.
The man steps away. They are in the bathroom. Rodrigo stands in the shower while the friendly man points Rodrigo’s torch at him, shines it all over his body and searches him up and down.
“What you doing out there in the middle of the night?”
Rodrigo takes in a few shaky breaths. The air smells of soap. Soap and sweat, like someone had recently used this shower. “I was… I came from Carnforth. I used to—used to have friends here. I—”
“Why did you come here?”
Rodrigo closes his mouth. Feigns searching for the right thoughts. This friendly man is sharp. Full of questions. He’ll have to be careful with him. Have to be careful not to slip up. Can’t mention the tractor he’s travelled in on. Can’t mention destroying his own shoes. “You know how it is on the road. The people. The… the ones with the eyes all hazy and—”
“Why did you come here?”
Slight tingling inside Rodrigo’s chest. Friendly man is starting to annoy him. He doesn’t want friendly man to annoy him. He just wants friendly man to be his friend. “My home. They—the angry people. They got inside. Smashed in all my windows. I—I had to sneak out the back window. And then I just walked here. Walked over the crag, through the fields. Lucky I made it.”
The friendly man watches. Then he nods, just the once. “Yeah. You are.”
They both stand still for a few moments. From the lounge area of the caravan, Rodrigo can hear footsteps. Creaking footsteps, soft footsteps.
Children’s footsteps.
New friends. Friends that Mummy always said would be bad for him. Friends that Daddy said he was too sick to deserve.
Not anymore, Mummy. And he isn’t sick. Daddy was the sick one. Rodrigo isn’t sick.
He isn’t. Really.
“Put your clothes on,” the friendly man says.
Rodrigo turns to look at him. Feigns surprise. “You… Oh you saviour. I—”
“No more of this saviour shit. Just put your clothes on and come through to the lounge. And don’t cross me. Don’t try anything stupid.”
Rodrigo zips up the flies of his black jeans. Frowns. “Why would I cross you? We’re people. We’re both people. We aren’t the enemy.”
Friendly man stares at him a few seconds. Shines the torch at him, like he is an actor in the spotlight. Rodrigo senses him trying to read him. Senses him trying to see through into his soul.
Except it is way too cloudy to see. The route to his soul is too misty for torchlight.
“I’m Jack. My children’s names are Sam and Jenny. You don’t talk to them unless I’m around, and even then you watch what you say. Understand?”
Rodrigo breaks into a wide smile. Nods fast. “Completely. Absolutely. I… I just need a place to stay. Just for the night. Then I can find my own caravan when my… when my strength’s up.”
The friendly man called Jack doesn’t even react to this. He walks to the wooden bathroom door. Clicks it open, switches off his torch. Tilts his head and gestures Rodrigo to lead the way.
Rodrigo’s feet burn against the carpet as he steps through into the lounge. As he walks into the darkness, smells the remnants of soup, tastes sweat and tears and… is that blood? Yes, the sourness of blood. He tastes that in the air, too.
Something bad happened here.
Something terrible.
That excites him.
“Kids,” Jack says, as the pair of them enter the lounge. “This is Rodrigo. He’ll be staying with us for a day or so just until he finds a caravan of his own.”
Rodrigo lifts a hand. Bows his head.
The kids just stand and stare.
“Shy, are you?” Rodrigo asks.
Jack plants a heavy hand on his left shoulder. A reminder of his place in this caravan. “They’ve been through a lot and they’re tired. You should rest up too.”
Jack hands Rodrigo a bag of Walkers crisps from the cupboard over the sink. Steps in front of him, sits beside his children, whispers words to them—words of bedtime encouragement. This man, he doesn’t seem a natural. Doesn’t seem a real father.
Maybe Rodrigo can be a real father to them.
Maybe if Jack goes away, he can have the family his daddy always told him he could never have.
And his mummy. His stupid mummy, always going on about taking his medicine or he’d do bad things. But he doesn’t need his medicine. He is strong now.
The little red splodge in the middle of his right eye, that is nothing.
It annoys him a little bit, makes his fists tense, but it is nothing.
Rodrigo takes a deep breath. Sits down at the circular table. Opens his bag of crisps and stares over at Jack in the darkness.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Rodrigo says.
Jack just nods. Nods, and stares.
Rodrigo closes his eyes and crunches down on his crisps.
H
e knows Jack is still watching him. He knows he’ll probably be watching him all night, and all tomorrow day, and maybe even all tomorrow night.
But a moment will come. A moment will come where his guard will slip, and Rodrigo will get a chance.
A chance to sneak to the hedges outside the caravan.
A chance to search around for the sword—the sword that Daddy always kept on the wall, the sword he’d had so much fun slicing Mummy with.
He peeks as he crunches another crisp.
Sees Sam, Jenny, so warm, so cuddly together.
He thought he just wanted friends. He thought he could come here in this horrible world and find some new friends now his mummy is gone.
But now, he wants a family. More than anything, he wants what everyone told him he’d never have.
He wants Sam and Jenny. Wants someone to trust him. Someone to believe in him.
And if that means using his sword on Jack, he will.
He closes his eyes completely.
Crunches down on another crisp.
Smiles.
THIRTY-TWO
Jack kept his eyes on Rodrigo all night.
He slept. Sat there at that circular wooden table and slept right through the night. Whimpered a few times in his sleep. Shook, woke up, looked around and reoriented himself.
All the time, Jack watched.
Rodrigo didn’t do a thing suspicious.
They all ate Cheerios for breakfast. Cheerios without milk. Sam insisted that eating Cheerios without milk was fine anyway because it was something Simon used to let him do. Jenny told him he was disgusting. Rodrigo just smiled, ate his cereal slowly.
“Quite a comic act, aren’t they?” he said to Jack.
“Something like that. Always bickering away.”
“Twins?”
“Yeah.”
“How old?”
Jack narrowed his eyes at Rodrigo.
He shook his head. “Sorry. Boundaries. I understand that. Just I… My sister has twins. Two girls. Identical.” He took a spoonful of Cheerios. Crunched down on them. “Or my sister had twins, I should say.”
Sam and Jenny looked at him with sadness. With sympathy.
“We’re ten,” Sam said. “How old were your sister’s twins?”
Jack felt like intervening, but he couldn’t see any immediate harm in conversation. His main concern wasn’t that Rodrigo was a nutcase, anything like that, anymore. Sure, he’d walked up in the middle of the night. But the night was safer to travel in. He’d needed to get away from his home. Found company.
What was so wrong with that?
No, Jack’s main concern was attachment. He didn’t want another Thomas. Didn’t want his kids bonding with someone else only for them to go away in the end.
The world was cruel. Anything was possible.
“They were eleven. Bit older than you guys. Just starting high school this time, actually. Lilliana and Tracey.”
“Pretty names,” Jenny said.
“They were pretty girls. Very pretty girls.”
He looked down at his bowl of cereal. Eyes were welling up. A quietness came over the caravan.
When they’d eaten their cereal, they had the last of some cartoned orange juice that would no doubt go off soon and sat around the table listening to the outside. Listening for footsteps. Movement. Anything like that. They hadn’t opened the curtains. Didn’t want to risk seeing what the sunlight had hiding outside. Didn’t want to risk alerting anyone, anything, of their presence.
“These things. The angry people.”
“The runners?” Jack said.
Rodrigo shrugged. “Runners. Angries. Zombies. Whatever. What’s the deal with them, you reckon?” He looked at the kids. Raised his hands, stopped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” Jack said. “Kids have seen enough bad shit for a lifetime. I dunno though. They seem to be more prevalent in sunlight. And with all the animals I’ve seen dead, I dunno. Some kind of solar event?”
“That’d explain the pet shop,” Rodrigo said. He stared into space, then shook his head. “A pet shop in Carnforth. Andy Stewart’s. Saw it when I was heading this way. All the birds in cages, dead. And birds and rats on the streets. Creepy.”
“I’ll drink ageing orange juice to that.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Sam asked.
Rodrigo smiled. Laughed a little.
“Sam, he doesn’t have to answer things like that.”
“No, no, it’s okay. Like you say, the kids have to deal with enough horrors in this world anyway.” He looked Sam straight in his eyes. “I had a girlfriend, yes. A wife, actually. Samantha.”
“Did you not love her?” Jenny asked.
Jack tensed up inside. “Jenny, that’s enough—”
“Just usually people wear wedding rings when they love someone.”
Another silence dropped over the caravan. An awkwardness.
Rodrigo stared at Jenny. Stared, held a twitching half-smile.
“Not every man wears a wedding ring,” Rodrigo said. His voice was shaky. “But I can assure you I loved her. I miss every second she isn’t here.”
He wiped the corners of his mouth on a napkin, and Jack bolted a hard glare in Jenny’s direction.
Jack walked over to the television. Tried turning it on, nothing but white noise.
“How long until the electricity goes AWOL?” Rodrigo asked, changing the topic.
“Surprised it hasn’t already. Did you access any of the emergency net?”
Rodrigo shook his head. “Saw the massacres on the street. Heard the screams, smelled the flames. Saw… saw what happened to my wife. To my family. Gave me enough reason to stay put.”
Jack stepped over to the curtains. Took a peek outside. Another boiling, sunny day. So warm that the pink curtains felt hot to the touch. The road was clear. The sea was crystal blue as it reflected the sun and the sky. In the distance, Jack could see Morecambe, clouds of smoke rising from it.
As Sam and Jenny made small talk with Rodrigo, Jack thought about life. Thought about all the things he’d ever wanted to achieve, to do. Visit New York. Climb the Rockefeller and see the Empire State, look out over Central Park, feel the breeze brushing against his face and smell the hot dog stalls on the wind.
He knew that was gone now. He knew all his hopes, all his dreams, were gone.
All he had left now was this caravan. These four walls.
And then he remembered it. Shit.
The body. Elissa’s body.
“We’re… Rodrigo,” he said. “I need your help with something.”
He explained the situation to Rodrigo. Showed him into the room. Jack could barely look, but Rodrigo seemed desensitised to Elaine’s bloodied corpse, like he’d seen so much pain and suffering that nothing could wear him down more than it already had.
He was calm and unmoved.
They covered Elaine’s body up as well as they could in the bloodied bedding. Carried her out through the lounge area. Jack told Sam and Jenny to cover their eyes, but they looked on, tears building up in them, like they were attending a funeral.
Jack and Rodrigo carried her outside. Stayed alert to their surroundings, but took her over into the road, over towards the hedges at the opposite side.
Jack wanted to say a few words. He wanted to apologise to Elissa. Wanted to thank her too. Thank her for leading him here. For giving him and his children a lifeline.
Instead, he counted down from three, swung with Rodrigo, and threw Elaine’s body into the hedges.
He heard the thump as she disappeared into the undergrowth. Wiped his hands, blood all over them again. Looked at Rodrigo, nodded. The kids looked on from the caravan door.
“We’ll have to get rid of…”
A sense of dread flickered up inside his chest. Spread to his stomach.
He turned around. Looked around the road. Looked at the concrete, at the spot right outside the caravan.
The spot where
Jeff and Thomas’s dead bodies had been last night.
“They… they were here.” He stepped right over to the spot. Crouched down. Peered at the blood.
“Who were?” Rodrigo asked. “Jack, I think I hear something. We need to get back in the van.”
Jack stared at the concrete road. Squinted at the blood on the stones. The blood from Thomas’s head. From Jeff’s torn-out intestines.
They’d been here. They were here. They couldn’t have moved.
He heard something up the road. Over to his left. A banging. Or no—an explosion of some kind.
“Jack, we need to get inside.”
Jack stepped up. Mind raced with all kinds of theories about Jeff and Thomas, none of them comprehensible.
He jogged back towards the caravan. “Get inside, kids.”
He stopped just as quickly as he’d spoken.
Rodrigo stopped, too. Stopped, as they both stood there in the middle of the road, staring at the source of the bang.
“Is that…?”
Jack watched as the red, smoky beam shot into the sky just a few miles away from them.
And then another one fired up into the sky.
And another.
“What are they? Fireworks?” Rodrigo asked.
But the closer Jack looked, the more he realised something about these red smoky trails.
They weren’t shooting up into the sky. They were shooting from the sky.
Another.
And another.
“They aren’t fireworks,” Jack said.
They stood. Stared some more, as more of these smoky trails blasted their way through the white fluffy cloud above, into the earth.
“Then what are they?” Rodrigo asked.
Jack watched as the inverted fireworks display continued. Listened to the mini explosions. Watched the colours—colours like he’d never seen before—light up the sky.
“I don’t think anyone knows,” he said.
He walked away from the road. Away from the spot where Thomas’s and Jeff’s bodies had been.
The disappearance of their bodies wasn’t the first thing on his mind anymore.
What was on his mind were Sam’s words.
Sam’s words, after that seizure all those nights ago.