“Well, that’s it. We won’t be getting to Bullsbrook tonight,” I said. My heart grew heavy with the pain of Caleb getting further and further away from me, despair strangling me like a boa constrictor, squeezing the life out of me.
“No, we won’t with this car,” Charlie said, “but we could get another car in the village and still make it to Bullsbrook tonight.”
His words cheered me up instantaneously. I looked at him with a great, big grin on my face. “Awesome thinking.”
We set a fast pace toward the village.
The last few nights had been clear, but tonight clouds had kept gathering, and as we hurried to the village, it began to rain. We held our jackets over our heads and ran. Expecting the village to be deserted, we made no effort to hide our presence. It still looked dreadful, the rain adding to the misery. Puddles had formed in the streets, and I jumped over them out of habit more than anything else. As we slowed down, looking for a car, we noticed movement around us. Slowly, people were coming out from the shadows. They were uninfected and didn’t look friendly.
In no time, we were surrounded by these angry-looking people. We hadn’t expected something like this at all. We thought everyone in the village had fled, been killed, or turned and gone. The number of survivors wasn’t great, but they were there, and I felt proud that humans could be so successful in hiding from such a deadly enemy.
Go, team humans!
Unfortunately, these good people were not as happy with us as I was with them and, quite frankly, they were scaring me. They didn’t know Charlie and I were unturned, and it didn’t look like they were taking any chances. They looked like a lynch mob, carrying guns and stakes and all sorts of improvised weapons. As they drew closer and surrounded us, Charlie and I slowly put our hands up. We put our backs together. I looked around, hoping to find a person in charge, but couldn’t see one. What I saw was a mix of people; old, young, male, female. They had one thing in common though; they all had hatred written on their faces. Suddenly someone yelled out, ‘They’re infected. Kill them!’ This roused the whole group into shouting as they moved in.
“Hang on,” Charlie tried to make himself heard over the top of them. “We’re uninfected. We’re like you. Uninfected!”
But the people were saying things like, ‘Look at their fangs,’ ‘Filthy infected,’ and ‘Murderers!’ They didn’t listen. They didn’t want to listen. We showed no sign of resistance as they grabbed us and dragged us to a blind wall. Charlie kept on trying to convince them, begging them to listen to him.
The whole situation was terrifying. I, too, began shouting.
“We’re uninfected! We’re in disguise. Please, listen to us!”
It was hopeless. These people were angry. Their families, friends, and neighbors had been taken from them. They wanted revenge. They pushed us against the wall and as one backed away.
“Charlie?” I hoped he would come up with a miracle rescue, but he, like me, couldn’t think of anything.
As two men with rifles stood opposite us and lifted their weapons to aim, the people went quiet. Charlie turned toward me.
“I’m so sorry, Kate,” and he took my hands and turned me toward him, preventing me from directly looking at the death squad.
In return, I put my hand on his face with a gentle and caring touch. As I closed my eyes, a tear escaped, and images of my life flashed in front of me. I always thought people made this stuff up, but it really happened. I heard the two guys cocking their guns. A recent image flashed by. My eyes flew open. I yelled.
“Harry!” I took my hand from Charlie’s face, looked around at the crowd and again yelled, “Harry. We were with Harry!”
One of them must have found the note in the refrigerator.
People were looking strangely at me, tipping their heads and turning to each other with confused expressions.
“Wait!” a woman shouted. She stepped forward and put her hand on one of the rifles aimed at us, pushing it down. Both the gunmen looked at her quizzically. The woman’s hair was disheveled, her dress ruffled. Her appearance was one of somebody who didn’t care anymore. She peered at me and tucked a string of hair behind her ear as if she did care all of a sudden.
“What do you mean by, ‘we were with Harry’?” she asked.
My mouth went into overdrive.
“We didn’t kill anybody. We had to pretend to be infected to survive. At night we went into houses and ate the food from the refrigerator and freezer to survive. We didn’t kill anybody. We left notes in the refrigerator signed ‘Harry,’ to thank the people for their hospitality and apologize for the mess we made … We didn’t kill anybody. We … didn’t kill anyone.”
I was out of breath and fell silent, hoping the woman understood my waterfall of words. For a second it was quiet. Then the woman gasped.
“That was our house. You left the note in our house.” Her eyes bulged as she turned around and yelled at everybody. “They left the note in our house!”
“Um, ayuh, we left the note in their house,” I repeated to the mob.
The woman took her turn to be a waterfall of words, explaining to all how they had survived the attack. I bit my lip and put one hand in my back pocket. Charlie was still holding my other hand and squeezed it. We exchanged hopeful glances.
The woman turned to us and gasped again. “Oh my god, and we nearly killed you.” She ran toward me and hugged me, held my head in her hands, patting my hair, crying, and thanking me a thousand times. With one arm, she pulled Charlie into the hug. The angry mob turned into a confused bunch of humans.
The intensity of the whole situation wasn’t over yet as most still didn’t look as though they accepted our innocence. They looked at our necks and pointed at our marks. We explained making them ourselves. They aimed bright torchlights into our eyes, one of them being a black light. As much as I tried, I couldn’t look into it. Charlie had no problem with it, and he gave the villagers the explanation I couldn’t because we’d spent most of our time in darkness these last few days and my eyes, being blue, were more sensitive. The villagers believed him, but as he shot me a quick glance, I knew Charlie wasn’t so convinced himself.
We let them inspect our fake fangs as if we were horses on a market. Only when we ripped our fake fangs off, with a lot of trouble, did they believe us.
Memo to myself: remember the brand of glue. It’s a really good one.
There were dozens of questions for us, but I didn’t want to deal with them. I desperately wanted to get to Bullsbrook to look for Caleb. I came up with the story that I needed to save my sister and asked them if anybody had a vehicle we could borrow to get to her. The husband of the woman who saved us didn’t hesitate and gave us his car keys.
“Thanks, man,” Charlie said to him, “we owe you.”
But the man shook his head. “No, it’s us who owes you.” He turned around to pick up his son and embraced his wife.
Charlie and I said our goodbyes and soon went on our way.
Chapter 42
Charlie’s mood worsened as we got closer to Bullsbrook. I could only imagine what he felt right now, getting closer to losing me.
In contrast, I felt elated. How lucky were we to not have been turned, to be able to escape from Duncan’s pack, to survive a lynching party, and finally to be on our way to find Caleb? There was a huge grin on my face. Every time I looked at Charlie, he smiled back at me, but it was like the smile of someone who’d just had a root canal treatment. I didn’t want to hurt him unnecessarily, so I stopped looking.
It was still nighttime when we arrived in Bullsbrook. I stopped in the middle of the road and let the car run idle before we reached the first house. My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. I hated not being in control, not knowing what was going to happen.
“Charlie, I don’t know what to do now.”
He thought for a while before he answered.
“You want to find Caleb.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know where to loo
k. He may not be here anymore.” I sighed.
“We’ll find him, Kate. Let’s begin where you saw him last. That’s usually the first thing to do. Let’s hope we can find some clues there.”
My eyes glazed over as I let my memory wander. Caleb had me pressed into a corner, his fangs caressing my flesh … I took a deep breath.
“The school it is then,” and I shifted the gear into drive.
I drove slowly to avoid shopping carts and garbage bins. Nothing much had changed since we left. I didn’t drive too slowly either as I didn't want to be surprised by more people wanting to attack us.
We entered the school grounds, and I automatically parked the car in the staff parking lot. After killing the engine, we scanned our surroundings, getting out of the car when we didn’t see anyone. Together we hurried toward one of the buildings. We hugged the wall as we moved on. I took a peek around the corner toward the main schoolyard. My heart skipped a beat as I couldn’t believe my luck. There stood Caleb. Excited, I turned to Charlie with a huge grin on my face.
“Caleb’s here,” I whispered.
Charlie wasn’t mirroring my enthusiasm. His face showed quite the contrast, actually. It was a mix of disappointment, sadness, and fear, but I refused to acknowledge all of it.
I turned around again to go to Caleb, but Charlie grabbed my arm. Annoyed, I looked at him.
“Kate,” he whispered, “are you sure you want to do this? What if—”
“Charlie,” I interrupted him and grabbed both his hands. “We talked about this before. Yes, I really want to do this. And no, there’s no way on earth you can stop me now.”
I can’t believe he’s even trying.
“I don’t know, Kate. I have a bad feeling about this.”
Charlie’s expression was pained. He hunched his shoulders and had a grimace on his face. His hands squeezed mine so hard it almost hurt.
He stared at me now. It was obvious he expected me to say something. When I didn’t, he took a deep breath and let his body relax, letting go of my hands.
“But if you’re one-hundred percent sure, I’ll let you go. I’ll be in the staff room if you need me.”
Again, he waited for me to respond. Eventually, he put his hand on my arm and gave it a little squeeze. Without another word, he turned around and walked away from me.
Rubbing my hands on my pants, I watched Charlie. It was as if a part of me walked away. I always felt so at ease with him. He made me laugh, and he soothed my pains. He made me whole. He was my dearest friend, and I loved him so much. But I wasn’t in love with him. I was pretty sure I wasn’t. Yet I had feelings for him I couldn’t explain. It confused the hell out of me. I had hurt Charlie by rejecting him, and it was painful to see him hurt. How I wished there was something I could do to ease his pain, but what he needed was something I couldn’t give.
They may write a book with that title; ‘The girl who didn’t love him.’
Life can be such a bitch.
When I returned from my thoughts to the here and now, I realized Charlie was gone. Had he looked back? Had he hesitated and waited for me to come running for him at the last moment? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.
I turned around, closed my eyes, and breathed deeply a few times. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to Caleb. I was too excited all of a sudden to have any coherent thoughts. Finally, I stepped out and walked in his direction.
Chapter 43
As I walked into the schoolyard, I registered the scene. The sky was overcast, the ground still wet from the rain that had fallen here earlier, and the moonless sky colored everything in different shades of gray. The school buildings loomed a near black as the rainwater had darkened the brickwork.
The schoolyard was empty but for Caleb and the dead bodies from the feeding a few nights back. The bodies were piled up in two distinct heaps and emitted the horrible smell of death. Water dripped from lampposts, like huge teardrops mourning the loss of all those innocent lives, the drips a monotonous sound of sadness. The whole scene could very well have been taken from some gruesome war movie.
Who am I kidding? This is a war.
The downpour in the village had soaked me, and I was chilled to the bone. I wasn’t sure if it was just the wet clothing clinging to my body that was the cause of my chills. All my senses screamed at me to get away, but the obsession I had nurtured the last few days kept pushing me forward.
I resigned myself to be more focused on Caleb, who stood in between the two heaps of bodies. He was going through the pockets of a dead person he was holding. I shivered again and wrapped my arms around myself.
As I walked on, I saw that the body Caleb held was positioned in an unnatural position. It was as if it was being held up by someone else. Walking closer, my view swept around the pile of bodies.
Sasha.
What a disappointment it was seeing Sasha here. Her presence brought an acidic taste to my mouth.
When Sasha and Caleb finished searching the body, they added it to one heap and picked up another body from the other. I heard them talk now. They were agitated, arguing, their communication tense. The closer I came, the louder my senses screamed at me.
Get out! Get away while you still can!
Sasha saw me first. She let go of the body.
“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,” she said to Caleb in that accent of hers.
I realized I wasn’t looking my best after the recent downpour and run-in with the lynching party.
At least my hair is real, bitch.
Caleb looked up from the body he was searching, followed Sasha’s stare, and threw me a quick glance.
Did I see a smile?
“Who’s that?” he said with a frown that seemed a bit over the top as he turned back to Sasha.
Caleb’s words were like a slap in my face. I couldn’t believe my ears. I hesitated, taken aback for a moment. I then continued walking, rebelling against the frantic screams of my common sense which couldn’t get any louder. Surely, I had been too far away yet for Caleb to recognize me.
“Don’t you remember, darling?” Sasha said. “She’s the snack for on the road you never got to have.”
My common sense rested its case.
She called him ‘darling.’ He is her ‘darling.’
Ayuh, but there’s something off about it.
“Ah, now I remember,” Caleb said as he fully turned toward me and looked me straight in the eye.
Immediately, I was lost in those deep, dark brown eyes like I had been before, and our souls were one again. We floated together in eternity until, within an instant, my stare was thrown out of the deep and hit a shallowness that belonged to a cold-blooded killer.
My body halted; footsteps, heartbeat, and breath. I struggled with the flood of feelings thundering through me. Confusion, disbelief, betrayal, but most of all hurt. One moment I had finally found my soul mate, the next I was eye to eye with a murderer.
Yet there was something, or at least there had been, for a split second. I made up my mind. I hadn’t come all this way for nothing. I had to know for sure.
I’m no quitter.
“What are you doing?” I asked, changing the tense air into that of common chitchat.
Caleb laughed the laugh I once thought was cute. It sounded so hollow now.
“If you must know, Sasha here lost her heirloom necklace in the hunt a couple of days ago, and we’re still looking for it. Can you believe it?” He half-pushed, half-dropped the body he was holding away from him and threw an angry stare at Sasha, clearly blaming her for the predicament he was in. She crossed her arms in reply.
“So you weren’t looking for me?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Oh my god, Caleb!” Sasha screamed while throwing her hands in the air. “I am really getting so tired of this bimbo fan club of yours.” The Russian r’s rolled easily off her tongue.
Caleb sighed as he half turned to Sasha. He hung his head, turned it slightly to me
, and lifted an eyebrow.
I frowned. He was sending out such mixed signals.
He inhaled deeply before he talked to her in icy tones.
“Darling, you’ve got to let me have these little pleasures. At least I don’t cheat on my partner like you did with Duncan.” His mouth may have smiled, but his eyes were as warm as an arctic winter’s day.
“You don’t tell me what to do, Caleb. I am not one of your cutesy toys,” Sasha screeched at him. She had closed the distance between them and was now pushing her finger into Caleb’s chest.
I couldn’t believe they were having a fight right in front of me as if I wasn’t there. My parents had never exchanged angry words in the presence of me and my sisters. I had assumed it was ‘not done,’ and nobody had ever proven me wrong. This time, I knew for sure I shivered from the emotions racing through the atmosphere, mine and theirs, and I put my hands in my trouser pockets to try to stop myself from shaking.
“You chose to be mine, Sasha, and I told you I wouldn’t share you with anyone else.” Caleb’s face turned red, and the veins in his temples stood out. He really was very upset.
As I dug my hands deeper into my pockets, I found the packet with the little strip of magnesium. Without thinking, I tore open the little bag, letting the oil seep out. Automatically, my thumb started to scratch the surface of the magnesium. My other hand gripped the lighter in my other pocket.
“Well, look who’s calling the kettle black. You’re throwing yourself at every floozy you see.” Sasha threw her other arm out in my direction.
So that’s what I am to you, a floozy.
“I am not yours, Caleb. I belong to nobody,” she continued, still pushing her finger into his chest. “You are the one who is mine. I made you, remember. I am sick and tired of you treating me like one of your little sluts.” They stood very close now, their noses almost touching. Her face color-matched the crimson of Caleb’s.
“Go back to your Duncan then if you want him so badly!” Caleb yelled at Sasha.
You don’t have to shout. You’re standing right in front of each other.
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