by Casey, Ryan
It was afternoon. A slight chilly breeze to the air now. The thought of spending the night in a city where this virus was rife terrified her. She was far away from home. She felt shaky, lost. She didn’t like spending time away from home, even at the best of times. She liked being able to go back home; liked enjoying her home comforts at the end of a long, stressful day at work.
The thought she might be spending the night somewhere other than her home scared her.
The thought of the reasons why—the situation out here—scared her even more.
They were outside of the suburbs now, heading towards the countryside. Things moved at a different pace out here. These roads were always quiet compared to the inner city and the suburbs. There never was as much of a buzz down here.
But right now, it felt quieter than ever.
They’d walked past some sights along the way. Some real daunting shit. They’d walked past an ambulance pulled over at the side of the road. They’d walked past a doctor’s surgery, full to the brim with sick people. And they’d walked past people. So many people. All with that same look of uncertainty about them. All with that same distrust about them.
That same look in their eyes.
That same curiosity.
“Never thought I’d get the chance to visit your posh house in the country,” Eddie muttered, walking by Kelly’s side.
“Yeah, well, don’t get your hopes too high just yet. You’ve still got plenty of time to screw things up.”
Eddie smiled at that. He usually had a wisecrack for everything. Usually had a way of turning everything into a joke, at least as far as Jasmine remembered, anyway.
But for some reason, he didn’t say anything to that. He had no witty comeback or smart remark.
It seemed weird.
But then Jasmine knew damn well Eddie probably just fancied Kelly. A lot of people did. And attraction had a remarkable way of paralysing even the smoothest of people.
“She had my football boots on the table,” Noah said.
Jasmine didn’t know what he was talking about at first. Didn’t even realise he was talking to her.
Not until she turned around and saw Noah staring into space, eyes wide, face pale.
At first, fear crept up inside her. He didn’t look well. Maybe he was ill. Maybe he was turning.
“Noah?”
He looked at her, then. “My mum. She was looking at my football boots. Mine. Not... not Kyle’s. And I don’t know how I feel about it.”
Jasmine felt a knot in her stomach. She knew how much Noah’s past life haunted him. How much the guilt over what happened to his little brother churned him up inside, and how much of a strain it put on his relationship with his parents.
“I’ve spent all these years telling myself they didn’t care about me. That they wished it was me rather than him. But I realise that’s not true now. I realise... things were complicated. And what happened to Kyle, that hurt them so much. The guilt and pain they must’ve felt. And how hard that must’ve made things between me and them, too. Because they didn’t want to fail me. They didn’t want to lose me. And I never saw it.”
Jasmine heard the pain in Noah’s voice, and for all her resistance, for all her reluctance to distance herself from others for reasons of her own, she wanted to reach over there and hug him right now. She wanted to apologise for everything. For leaving him. For putting him through what she put him through. She knew how hard it must’ve been. How painful it must’ve been. Because it was painful for her, too.
But she’d done it because she was afraid, too.
She was terrified.
And it was the worst mistake she’d ever made.
“They know how much you love them,” Jasmine said. “They know how much you were hurting, but how much you cared about them, too. They know that, and they’ll always know that. And... and you’ll see them again, Noah. You’ll see them again. Sometimes it takes an event like this to really bring two people together again.”
Noah looked at her. Right into her eyes.
“Two people?” he said.
She opened her mouth. Realised the mistake she’d made.
And then Kelly cleared her throat rather dramatically up ahead.
Jasmine spun around.
Saw Kelly standing there. Hands on hips. Staring up ahead.
“Hate to break the cathartic moment,” she said. “But I think we’ve got a problem.”
Jasmine stepped forward and saw exactly what Kelly was talking about.
Up ahead, there was a vehicle on its side, blocking the street, on fire.
Armed troops, standing there, masks over their faces.
“Looks like we might have to take a detour,” Kelly said.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Noah saw the armed group up ahead, and for a moment, he felt a flicker of naive, ill-placed hope.
It was getting later. The sun, which had beamed down so brightly and intensely earlier, had hidden behind the clouds. There was a slight chill to the air. A coolness that could’ve been refreshing in any other circumstances.
But nothing felt refreshing right now.
Noah saw the commotion up ahead, and he realised damned well what this was. It was the quarantined group from the flats near him. Or a different quarantined group, perhaps. The same look—army vehicles, people dressed in protective gear. Rifles quite visibly in hand, now.
This wasn’t any ordinary blockade like Noah first suspected, either. There had been some kind of accident. The army vehicle had crashed into a model shop on the right. Smoke and flames burned up from the engine.
And inside that vehicle, Noah heard crying out and screaming.
He looked at Eddie staring widely at this hold-up. Then at Kelly, at Barney, at Jasmine. They couldn’t keep moving this way. They couldn’t risk drawing the attention of these people.
Because as much as Noah was certain there were many potential reasons for an accident, the one that hung over him more than any was that it was virus related.
“We need to find another route,” Noah said.
Kelly sighed. Scratched her head. “We’ll have to go through the fields. But it’s a longer way around.”
“Then so be it,” Noah said. “We can’t keep going this way. You know that just as well as I do.”
Kelly nodded. “Today’s really starting to piss me off.”
“Preach,” Jasmine said.
They stood there, staring up the road. Noah couldn’t believe what he was looking at. Those shrieks. Those pained cries. He didn’t know what’d happened here. But he knew it wasn’t good.
“You sure those people can’t help us?” Jasmine asked.
Noah frowned. “What?”
“They look... official. Like they might be able to help. Are you sure they can’t?”
Noah looked back at the crashed army vehicle, and he saw something that turned all his muscles to stone.
“Why don’t you take a look and see for yourself?” he asked.
A woman clambered out the side of the vehicle. Old woman. Chubby. Looked in her eighties.
There were burn wounds right the way up her arms.
Tears streaming down her face.
And something else.
“Blood,” Eddie said.
Noah squinted at the woman, and he saw it clearly.
The blood from her eyes.
From her nostrils.
From her mouth.
“Please,” she cried. “I’m okay. I just need an ambulance. I just need my children. My Dom. I just need—”
A blast.
The woman slumped to the road.
Fell silent.
“Shit,” Noah gasped.
He put a hand in front of his mouth. Because as much as he suspected shit like this would be going down, seeing it right before him just brought the reality crashing home.
“They’re culling the infected,” Kelly said. “You sure you still want to trust them, Jasmine?”
Jasmine stared
on, wide-eyed. And Noah felt her pain. Because this was only the first day. This was the first damned day, and already things were spiralling completely out of control.
All attempts to contain this virus were failing.
People were panicking.
People were...
It all happened so fast.
Barney started barking.
The two armed, suited men turned around and looked right in their direction.
“Shit,” Noah said. “We’ve got to get the hell off this road. Now!”
He turned, and he ran across the street, over towards the row of terraced cottages. He didn’t hear any gunfire or anything like that. He couldn’t be certain whether or not they would fire at his group. He didn’t know a thing.
He just felt afraid.
He needed to get away.
Because nothing about this was ordinary. Nothing about it was predictable.
And he couldn’t trust a soul.
He rushed down the side of the alleyway at the end of the terraced cottages. Ended up in a ginnel behind it. The rest of his group was here with him. Panting. Alarmed. Terrified.
And behind, Noah heard footsteps racing their way.
Eddie glared at him, wide-eyed. “What the hell now?”
Noah turned to the metal fence between the ginnel and a big tree-filled area behind.
“We have to climb,” he said.
He clambered his way up the fence. Reached the top, being careful not to scratch himself on any of the rusty metal.
When he was at the top, he heard voices.
Voices through a megaphone.
“Hold your position! We mean no harm. We’re here to take you to safety.”
But Noah didn’t trust them.
He didn’t trust a single word.
He helped Kelly up. Helped Jasmine up. And then he helped Barney up, too.
And he saw something, then.
Eddie.
Standing there.
Staring up at him.
Tears in his eyes.
“Eddie?” Noah said.
Eddie stayed standing there. Bottom lip shaking.
“What the hell are you doing, mate? You need to...”
He saw it then.
A string of phlegmy blood trickled from Eddie’s nostrils.
Pink tears streamed from his eyes.
Even his sweat looked tinted with the angry red of blood.
Noah felt a wave of sickness crash against him. He shook his head. Kept his hand outstretched. “No. Eddie, come on. Please.”
But Eddie just stood there.
Half-smile on his face.
Tears in his eyes.
“I owe you everything, bro,” Eddie said. “You lifted me up when I was down. You were there for me more than you’ll ever frigging realise. And you’re way, way stronger than you’ll ever admit. Don’t you ever forget that.”
And then Eddie turned around and faced the oncoming footsteps.
“Eddie!” Noah shouted.
Eddie looked back. Just once. There was a different look to his face now. One of acceptance. One of confidence. One of the cheeky, cheery Eddie, who always put a smile on Noah’s face, even when he wasn’t exactly pulling his weight.
“Go,” Eddie said. “And you do something for me. You make it up with Jasmine. You’re meant to be together. Doesn’t take an idiot to see that.”
Noah dangled there against the fence. Stinging tears streamed from his eyes. Sickness filled his body. Exhaustion. This day. This bastard day. It had to be a nightmare. It couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be.
“Please,” Noah said.
Footsteps racing down the alleyway.
“Go,” Eddie said. “Just... go.”
And as Noah dangled there, looking into his best friend’s bloodshot, bleeding eyes, he could only say one thing.
“I’m sorry, Eddie. I’m so sorry.”
And then he dropped down to the other side of the fence.
Turned around.
And he ran into the woods.
He cried as he ran. He didn’t have any sense of where he was. Who was around him. Where he was going.
All he could do was listen.
Wait for the inevitable sound.
It was fifteen seconds before he heard it.
First, a shout.
Then a blast.
Then another.
Then, nothing.
Chapter Forty
Noah walked through the fields towards Kelly’s and couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder.
The clouds were thick now. A strong, cool breeze to the air. All around, Noah saw fields. Saw sheep huddled up to one another. Cows grazing. He saw a motorway bridge up ahead, cars at a standstill, the faint sound of horns honking at one another.
He saw all of these things, but in his mind’s eye, he only saw one thing.
Eddie.
The blood streaming from his nostrils.
The pink tears pooling from his eyes.
That look of guilt to his face as he stood there, shaking his head.
And then turning his back on him and waiting for the sound of gunfire.
“Noah?”
Noah looked around. Saw Jasmine approaching him. Kelly walked alongside Barney. She hadn’t said a lot. For someone Noah thought so detached, she seemed remarkably shaken by what’d happened to Eddie.
And it was just as well.
Because one wrongly placed comment and Kelly wasn’t getting off the hook this time.
Noah looked away from Jasmine. Focused on the fields ahead, on the trees in the distance, on everything but the memory of Eddie, just for a moment. “We need to keep moving. We—”
“Noah,” Jasmine said.
Noah stopped. Spun around. “What?”
“Just... just take it easy, okay? After what just happened, you can’t just charge on like this. Like nothing happened. You have to feel it.”
Noah wanted to scream. He wanted to cry out at Jasmine, tell her what he felt, what was bottled up inside.
But it was anger that took hold instead.
“What do you care?”
Jasmine frowned. “What?”
“You ditched me. You never liked Eddie. Hell, I’m surprised you’re even here at all, seeing as you’re such a high flyer. Funny how things go when you actually need someone else, like Kelly, right?”
“Don’t do this, Noah,” Jasmine said. “Don’t make this all about me.”
“He’s gone,” Noah spat. “My best mate is gone. And now I’m... I’m on my own. I’m totally on my own. And I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t be responsible for him. I tried so hard, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t save him.”
He stopped. Stood there in the wind, in the middle of this field. He couldn’t move another muscle. Couldn’t move an inch.
He could only stand there and feel it all hitting him in waves.
“I let him down,” Noah said. “I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t save him. Just like I couldn’t save Kyle. Just like... just like I couldn’t save us. Just like I couldn’t save my fucking self if I wanted to.”
He covered his face with his hands. And he felt something. Jasmine. Jasmine’s hands on his back. Her arms wrapping around him. Holding him tight.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m here.”
He wanted to tell her to get away.
He wanted to tell her to leave.
Because he’d lost her already. He’d driven her away already.
He didn’t want to lose her again.
But he needed her here right now.
He needed her close.
He needed someone.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered. “None of this is your fault.”
And all Noah could do was sit there in the grass, wind crashing against him, and cry for his best friend, and for another life he couldn’t save.
Chapter Forty-One
Jasmine held Noah as he perched in the grass and tried to avoid a cacophon
y of emotions spilling out herself.
It was late afternoon. The clouds were still thick, but they’d parted a little. A beam of sunlight shone right through, right over the streets where they’d lost Eddie.
That horrible, confusing moment.
One moment, Eddie standing there. Fleeing the oncoming forces with the rest of the group.
And the next, seeing the blood drip down his face.
The sudden realisation that Eddie wasn’t well at all.
Her ears rang. Her body ached. It was impossible to believe this was still just the first day. She told herself things would get better. That when the military and the government really got a grip of what was going on here, things would dramatically improve.
But that felt like a slim, distant hope in the scheme of things.
Because she’d seen the chaos on the streets. She’d seen people locking themselves away, waiting for help. And she’d seen what happened when people couldn’t be helped; when they fell victim to the virus.
The vision of that bleeding woman crawling her way out of the side of that army vehicle.
Begging for help. Begging for mercy.
And the desperate, reactionary way in which the military—that’s all she could assume they were—reacted.
She told herself order would return. That the police would restore things; that the emergency services would get to grips with this.
But then if this really was as widespread as it looked, it wasn’t as simple as that.
They were all lost in this world. Waiting for help. Waiting for some kind of rescue.
And Jasmine realised now—as much as she’d been trying not to—that she couldn’t just blindly trust those offering help.
They were taking people from flat blocks away. Wheeling people from communal living spaces towards... well, hell knows where. She didn’t want to find out anymore. She didn’t want to know. Not when she’d seen just how dangerous and infectious this virus could be.
But right now, for all the questions spiralling her mind, she thought of Noah, and she thought of the guilt she felt over abandoning him all that time ago.
She held him close. Kelly kept an eye on Barney, rubbing his head. Jasmine half-expected her to make some wisecrack, her usual defence mechanism, but she was remarkably quiet. Like she was just as stunned as the rest of them. Because it was one thing to witness all this drama, all this chaos, all this loss. It was another to actually lose a member of your group, all in the snap of a finger.