by Casey, Ryan
She never meant it. Never meant a word of it.
But along with the happy memories, she remembered the last time he’d hugged her.
Said goodbye.
Those cold fingers on the back of her neck, one final time.
At that moment, there were so many things she wanted to say to Noah. So many things she wanted to explain to him.
But now wasn’t the time, and now wasn’t the place.
She pulled Noah to his feet. He winced a little when he stood.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Noah said, cringing, limping. “I’ve been hit by two buses and just dodged one in the last couple of days. I won’t let a cut on my knee kill me.”
She eased him to the side of the road. Kelly reluctantly helping, too. The more they walked, the easier it seemed to get for him. But he needed some kind of stitching up. He couldn’t go on like this.
Just a pity today wasn’t exactly the best day to require emergency services.
They sat on a bench in the centre of a park. On a bench opposite, an old man sat reading a newspaper, smile on his face, like nothing at all was different, like nothing had changed. Like the chaos on the streets was just a problem the police and the government would figure out, eventually.
“So what do you think?” Kelly asked.
Jasmine swallowed a lump in her throat. She couldn’t look at Kelly without experiencing a severe surge of guilt. “About what?”
“About the next step.”
Jasmine looked around at her. “The next step?”
Kelly shrugged. She didn’t look into Jasmine’s eyes, not directly. “You’re not my first choice of person to hang out with. You’re way, way near the top of my shit list right now. But the way I see it, we don’t have much of a choice but to stick together.”
Jasmine felt tears welling up. She wiped her eyes, tried not to show her emotion.
And then she looked at Noah.
He seemed hesitant. Caught in two minds. And for a moment, Jasmine thought Noah might actually turn down the offer. Reject any kind of reunion.
But in the end, he shrugged and forced a twitchy half-smile. “We might as well,” he said. “Besides. I bet you can’t wait to see Eddie again, can you?”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “Eddie? You still knock about with him?”
“He’s a good guy,” Noah said, standing. “He’s just ...”
“Lazy,” Kelly said. “Unmotivated. More of a slacker than you. Those the words you’re looking for, Noah?”
Noah rolled his eyes. And Jasmine did, too.
She looked into those eyes, and she saw a trace of the past—good and bad—all over again.
And then she stood up. As too did Kelly. As too did Barney.
She looked at the buildings in the distance, and she took a deep breath.
“Let’s go find Eddie,” Jasmine said. “Then let’s figure out what the hell we’re going to do next.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Colin Farke knew it was his lucky day the second his support worker started crying blood on the bus into Fulwood.
It was a normal day, otherwise. Pretty damned gorgeous, in fact. Blue skies. Beaming sun making him squint as he sat at the back of this bus. Totally boiling. He wanted to get up. To tell one of the idiots on here to crack open a window, let some air in. It reeked. Sweat. Piss. Shit aftershave.
But he had to keep his cool. He had to keep his calm. Maintain his composure.
’Cause he was lucky to even be out today at all.
He’d been moved down from a medium to a low secure unit three days ago. He never thought the day would come. He’d spent years in prison before being moved to a high secure unit in a psychiatric ward for his “troubling behaviour.” And at first, he’d been tempted to continue that “troubling behaviour” just in a new location. He’d been tempted to cause as much chaos as he possibly could, all under the guise of “psychological difficulties.”
But Colin Farke saw another option.
He’d been handed a golden opportunity.
An opportunity to get out of incarceration, sooner than he ever imagined, all because he was retrospectively deemed to have done what he’d done for psychological reasons.
Colin Farke was hiding another secret.
He didn’t have any psychological difficulties.
He wasn’t like the rest of the people locked up inside that secure unit.
He was a master at making people see what he wanted them to see.
So he saw an opportunity. A long game. A chance to escape.
It’d taken six long years, but that was far preferable to the fifteen he’d been sentenced to.
But finally, he was in low secure.
Finally, he was allowed to leave the unit for a couple of hours a day, a support worker by his side.
Which meant release was on the horizon.
A chance to get out into the world.
A chance to start living again—truly living.
He heard the bus driver honking on his horn. Saw people growing impatient. Swearing. Cursing under their breaths. The roads were full. He could hear a lot of sirens. Heard whispers of some kind of virus. Some kind of outbreak.
But it was all overblown.
It always was.
It...
He saw something, then.
A woman.
Climbing on to the front of a car.
Something in her arms.
A baby.
And this woman, she didn’t look right. Something was wrong with her.
She was covered in blood.
She slammed her fists into the windscreen. People rushed out of their cars, raced down the road. Fearing something closing in.
“Colin?”
Colin glanced around at Dave, his dim-witted support worker who barely had enough brain cells to function properly.
And he noticed something.
Blood.
Trickling from his nostrils.
His eyes.
His ears.
Sadness to his shaky voice. “I don’t feel so good, Colin. I don’t feel...”
And then he threw up.
Blood.
Blood with chunks of food in it.
And other chunks.
And then he slumped down against the seat in front of him and went totally still.
People jumped up. Shouted. Screamed. They raced towards the doors of the bus. Some kind of confusion set in. Some kind of panic. The bus driver slamming into something. A crack against the glass. Chaos taking hold.
And all Colin could do was sit there as this chaos unfolded around him.
As his support worker slumped dead by his side.
Colin thought about staying here. Staying put, as people ran into the road.
Because he was so close to release.
So close to freedom.
This felt like a test. He could taste the fresh air of the real world all over again.
But then there was another thought, too.
The cars stacked up.
The sirens.
The panic in the streets.
Something serious was happening here.
So maybe this was his opportunity.
He stood up. Walked down the aisle of the bus, towards the front door. Expecting someone to ask him where he was going. Expecting someone to stop him like they always did in his life.
But nobody asked him.
Nobody stopped him.
Nobody even looked at him.
He stood at the bus door. The driver was long gone. He looked down onto the concrete at that threshold between the last years of his life and his future.
And then he took a deep breath and stepped onto the tarmac.
He heard the screams.
Felt the warmth of burning.
Saw the panic and confusion on the faces of so many people.
He stood there and remembered the last time he’d been free.
The day he’d killed that family of thre
e.
Mother first. Then daughter.
And then when the father finally caved in and gave him the keys to the safe, he too.
He thought about that dark moment, and he smiled.
The past was behind him now.
But he’d remember the skills he’d learned in whatever future lay ahead.
And he’d use them whenever he could.
He looked across the street, over towards those two women, that dog, and that limping lad, moving towards the shelter of the park.
He smiled.
Then he walked.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Noah stumbled down the road towards his flat and still couldn’t wrap his head around this crazy few days.
It’d gone a little cloudy, but there was no relief from the humidity. The further they got from the middle of the city, the calmer things felt. Noah knew it was an illusion. He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew there was no way of containing something like that from the city when every damned person was heading in the same direction as him.
And then there was the problem of himself. The fear that he was infected, too. He’d come into contact with the homeless guy, after all. He’d been in close proximity to that poor woman with her baby not long ago.
But he still felt fine.
He still felt okay.
And as far as he could tell, Kelly was fine, too.
All of them were.
He thought about his mum and dad a lot as he walked, too. He wanted to ring them. He still had that voice in his head telling him he shouldn’t fall back on them; should be responsible for himself.
He thought of his baby brother.
The sadness that tore into him, right to this day.
The guilt that still ate him up.
That would forever eat him up.
The group didn’t say much as they walked. The occasional wisecrack from Kelly. No mention of Noah and Jasmine’s past, although it hung over proceedings like a bad smell. And one that Noah knew was going to come up in conversation eventually. For now, though, things were as pragmatic as could be. Mostly, their talk was confined to the things they’d witnessed and experienced. The different things they’d witnessed and learned on their own, pooled together in their group knowledge.
“Animals can get it,” Jasmine said.
Noah frowned. Glanced at Barney, this big chunk of Rottweiler, a little nervously. “How do you know?”
Jasmine sighed. “My dog was with a woman called Lisa. She looks after him when I’m at work. I...”
She stopped talking. Looked away.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”
Jasmine nodded. That was something she always told Noah she appreciated about him. All this emphasis on talking, on expressing feelings and emotions. On getting grievances out into the open.
But sometimes it was okay not to talk.
Sometimes, it was good to keep things to yourself. To hold things back. To process them on an individual level.
She glanced at Noah. Smiled, just a little. And he felt a combination of emotions. Warmth from the past like no time had passed at all.
But also sadness, too. A sadness of the years since. Of the way they’d broken up.
And in Noah’s case—he didn’t know about Jasmine—the fact he’d never been able to fall for someone quite like Jasmine ever since.
“You two going to gawk at one another forever? Or are you gonna check this out up ahead?”
Noah spun around. Jasmine cleared her throat. They both looked over at what Kelly saw, trying their best to pretend there hadn’t just been a moment between them.
Maybe there hadn’t. Maybe it’d just been him.
Maybe he saw signs when they weren’t there.
He quickly glanced ahead, to where Kelly was looking.
First of all, he saw something that filled him with relief. His flat. Right across the street. So close. And even though it wasn’t the end point, it was something. He’d been so caught up in everything that he’d even lost track of where he was.
But they were close.
“Looks like the government is finally sorting shit out,” Kelly said.
Noah squinted up ahead. He saw green vans on the road. They were unlike any vans he’d ever seen, but the closest he could think of were army trucks.
Except these weren’t normal army trucks.
There were people in protective suits climbing out of them. Masks over their faces. Long, clear protective clothing covering every inch of their body. It was hard to tell what gender they were. Or whether there was a chance they were actually army under there.
One of them lifted a megaphone. “We’re here to evacuate you to the nearest safe zone. If you could step out of your homes in an orderly fashion, it would be greatly appreciated.”
First, a silence.
Then people came rushing out of the flats.
Looks of gratitude on their faces. Like they were being saved.
“Well,” Jasmine said. “Looks like this is our chance.”
“Hold on a second,” Kelly said. “You really want to go following those nutters to this safe zone?”
Jasmine frowned. “They’re here to help us. The television, it said to—”
“I don’t care what the frigging television said. The television said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and look how that one worked out? This evacuation shit. It’s not right.”
“What’s not right about it?”
“Well, think about it. They’re taking these people to some kind of safe place. Surely the last place you wanna be right now is cooped up in some supposed safe place with a bunch of infected people?”
“We don’t know they’re all going to the same place,” Jasmine said.
“Just think about it for once in your frigging life. There’s no way I’m jumping onto that van before I know exactly what’s going on here. For me, the plan’s simple. We pick up Noah’s stupid friend. Then we move on to the countryside to my place. We’ve got plenty of supplies and shit there. And at least there, we can keep our heads down ’til we know exactly what’s going on.”
“And what if it’s too late by that point?” Jasmine asked.
“Then it’s too damned late. I’d rather take my chances than get onto that merry bus to hell. Noah?”
Noah saw Kelly look at him. Jasmine looked at him too. He felt the weight of the casting vote falling onto his shoulders. That weight of responsibility, pressing down on him.
He looked at the people stepping onto that truck.
And for a moment, he felt tempted.
Until he saw something under one of the suits of those people.
Something that looked like a rifle.
“We wait it out like Kelly says,” Noah said.
“Wow,” Kelly said. “Is that literally the first time you and me have agreed on something? Maybe I am stupid, after all. Jasmine? Let’s get the hell on that van.”
Jasmine sighed. The three of them watched that truck fill with more people. Watched the guy with the megaphone scan his surroundings, then stick up a thumb and nod before the truck pulled away, off into the distance.
And then he saw his flat, right across the road, right before him.
“Let’s go get Eddie,” Noah said.
“You sure he hasn’t got onto that truck?” Kelly said. “Seems like the kind of idiot who’d blindly follow a sheep off a cliff.”
Noah shook his head and smiled. “Trust me. He won’t be on that truck.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because he’s never even awake at this time anyway. Now come on. Let’s get this done with.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jasmine kept her head down as she rushed across the street, right by Noah’s side.
She kept on looking up the road in the direction that evacuation truck had headed. She couldn’t shake the feeling she’d made a mistake. She understood Noah and Kelly’s concerns. She’d see
n enough shows on Netflix to know anyone donning quarantine gear and holding rifles was probably not good news.
But that wasn’t reality. That was fiction.
People’s motivations weren’t going to be quite as shady in reality.
Right?
But she found herself following Noah and Kelly’s lead, anyway. Barney trailing along by her side. She kept on glancing at Noah. Noticed him limping. Not as bad as before, but hardly ideal, either.
Every time she thought she was clear, she caught Noah glancing back at her, which created a strange moment of tension between them. So many things unsaid. So many things unspoken.
But now wasn’t the time.
Now wasn’t the place.
They reached the opposite side of the road. Sirens in the distance, a reminder of the severity of the situation. Every now and then, she saw someone rushing past, hand covering their mouth, eager not to breathe in the seemingly toxic air as they raced their way back home.
Jasmine stopped when she reached Noah’s block of flats. They weren’t the best looking flats. This tall, grey structure, graffiti smeared across the lower walls. T-shirts hung out of windows, drying in the sun. She felt for Noah, then. ’Cause he’d had it pretty good when he lived with her. She always swore he’d just move back in with his parents, though, so fair play to him for branching out.
Kelly stopped first. Looked up at the tall superstructure, turning up her nose.
“What?” Noah said.
Kelly looked around at him. “Huh?”
“Go on,” Noah said. “Say it. Say what’s on your mind.”
Kelly shook her head. “Oh, nothing’s on my mind.”
“Don’t bullshit me. I can see the judgement in your eyes. ‘It’s a shithole.’ Whatever.”
“Well, you said it. Not me.”
“Yeah, well, not all of us are lucky enough to have rich parents and privileged upbringings.”
Kelly raised an eyebrow. “And some of us have proper jobs.”
“Had,” Jasmine said.
She felt bad about it right away.
But she felt defensiveness over Noah. She didn’t like Kelly’s judgemental, snobby side. It needed knocking down a peg or two. Especially considering Noah was right. She had sponged off her parents a hell of a lot over the years. She’d had a lot of privilege herself.