“That should keep the bastards out,” Gwyn said.
“What about the front window, then, Dad?”
“No need to protect that, bach – the glass is doubled-glazed,” Gwyn said, confidently.
Gwyn went over to the TV, where there was a reporter on the screen, and turned the sound up. Gwyn’s bolt-action shotgun was resting against the audio set; he checked its chamber, and found a bullet loaded there. Dafydd sat by his father, and watched the news.
Sarah came into the room with their tea, and smiled.
“Here you go then,” she said.
“Thanks, love,” Gwyn said.
“Yeah, thanks, Mam.”
She smiled, and left to go upstairs.
“I think I’ll just check on Toni. Won’t be long.”
Gwyn touched her arm, “Wait, before you go, beaut…Dafydd told me that you think you may have…swine flu?” he said, and gulped.
“No, just a cold, mun. No need to worry, Gwyn.”
“What kind of work were they doing at Twsc barracks?” Gwyn asked. Dafydd looked at his mother, then at his father. Beads of sweat formed on the youngster’s forehead.
“You told your father?” Sarah said.
“I—”
“Don’t go blaming him; he did the right thing in telling me.”
She sighed. “You know I’m not supposed to divulge what goes on there, Gwyn. It’s…”
He stood up, and gripped her by both her arms, drawing her toward him, “I think we are beyond the point of worrying who knows what, Sarah, bach. People are killing each other on the streets, and they think it may have started in Twsc.”
She glanced down, unable to look Gwyn in the eye.
“I’m not part of the medical personnel at the barracks like I told you…I’m a highly trained germ warfare technician drafted in by a superior officer to help build a new weapon.”
Gwyn let go of his wife’s arms, and collapsed back onto the sofa.
“I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t…”
“How long, then?”
“Gwyn, please.”
“How long, Sarah, please?”
“All my career.”
Gwyn looked up at her, his face twisted into shock. “You’ve been lying all this time?!”
“You knew when we got together that I couldn’t disclose my job to you.”
“Are you telling me that you created this mess?”
“Not just me, but others too. A small team of us in fact, but nobody knows for sure it’s—”
“Oh, please, enough already. Did you know this was going to happen?”
“Not to this extent, no – we had the germ in the lab for almost five years without any trouble. We never thought it would get out.”
“Why the hell didn’t you warn us? We could have left, gone far away.”
“I was scared, Gwyn.”
“Of what?”
“Of what they would do to me if they knew I was still alive.”
“What?”
“I need to go and check on Toni. I’ll be back down to talk to you.”
“No, we need to talk now.”
“Please, Gwyn, let me just check on our daughter.”
“No, tell us, Mam,” Dafydd said, sounding just as annoyed as his father. Sarah looked at her son in shock. “Please, Mam.”
“I don’t know all the details, because the others and I were kept in the dark about why we were creating this weapon.”
“Oh, dear God, mun.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds, Gwyn. Honest. We get asked to design different things all the time.”
He shook his head as she sat down beside him, putting her arms around him. “We’ll be okay, I promise you.”
“How can you say that, Sarah, bach? The bloody army have been drafted in, in some parts of the country.”
She let go of Gwyn, and wiped the tears from her eyes, “I have to go and check on Toni.”
Gwyn didn’t say anything, neither did Dafydd.
“Gwyn? Please, say something.”
“I can’t believe what I’ve been hearing. I’m hurt and disappointed that you, of all people, can land us in hot water as deep as this.”
“Please, I was only doing what I was told to do – it was my job!”
“Your job may have cost us our lives here, Sarah.”
She stood up, and walked out of the room - “I’m going to check on our daughter.”
*
She straightened and glanced down into the toilet. There was definitely blood in her bile. She flushed, put the seat down and sat on the toilet. Sarah put her head in her hands, and wept. She knew she was dying, or even transforming. She should have killed herself hours ago, but she hadn’t. She’d needed to see her husband and son one last time, to tell them the truth about the lab. She’d also wanted to make sure that it was virus-d, and not a common cold.
But she now knew that it was virus-d; she’d seen the effects of it many times in the past. Sarah thought she had got out of the research facility in time, before the virus had escaped via the two test subjects.
She started coughing violently, and stood up. She went to the bathroom cabinet and looked in the mirror; a cluster of boils had gathered on her forehead – one popped and yellow-brown pus leaked down her face. Blood spouted out of her right eye and joined the murky trail already running down her cheeks.
Sarah sobbed as she opened the cabinet. She took out all the bottles of pills she could find, and uncapped them. She filled the small glass by the sink with water, and started shooting tablets down her throat, one after the other, taking sips of water now and then.
*
“Where the hell is your mother?” Gwyn said.
“She went up to see Toni, didn’t she?” Dafydd said.
“It’s almost been forty minutes, mun.”
Dafydd shrugged.
Gwyn didn’t say anything; just looked at his son, then at the television with horror on his face. The guy on screen was reporting live from the Rhondda Valleys, as he and his crew were attacked by a group of infected people. All Gwyn and Dafydd could do was watch on in alarm. The cameraman dropped his camera, which kept running even after it hit the floor, displaying a gore scene of the presenter being pulled to pieces by the sick. Before Gwyn could react in any way, the screen went blank and a blood-freezing scream from upstairs chilled Gwyn.
“Jesus, Mam!” Dafydd shouted, picking up the wrench and heading for the stairs.
“Wait!” Gwyn called after him.
Dafydd saw the bathroom door standing open, and blood streaks on the linoleum flooring.
“Mam?” he called. “Mam!”
Gwyn ran up the stairs behind him, gasping at the sight of blood.
Dafydd eased over to the bathroom door, and looked in. The glass in the cabinet mirror was smashed and resting in the sink. Small plastic bottles littered the floor; there were pills everywhere. Some of the pink tiles were smudged with blood, so too was the shower curtain.
“Let me see, Bach,” Gwyn said gently.
Dafydd turned out of the room, and faced the door of his sister’s room. Bloody prints could be seen on the door’s handle. His heart smashed against his ribs, and pelted at a terrific rate.
Gwyn came out of the bathroom and joined Dafydd on the landing. Nothing could be heard in the house.
“Sarah, are you in there, beaut?” Gwyn called.
Dafydd put his hand to the door handle, plunging it downwards. He kicked the door wide, and bounced backwards.
Sarah was stood over her six-year old daughter, a blooded shard of glass in one hand, and the child’s scalp in the other. The bed was soaked in blood, which dripped off the sheets and onto the carpet, where it was slowly seeping into the floorboards.
“Oh, my God,” Gwyn said, covering his mouth.
Sarah shot her head towards them, staring for a second before charging at the two men.
Dafydd stepped out of his mother’s way, leaving her to slam into his fat
her. Sarah took Gwyn through the banister, and they crashed to the hallway. Gwyn couldn’t move – his rib appeared to have snapped in the fall, and now pierced his right side. Sarah got onto her back, and looked straight up at Dafydd, who was staring down at them both. She snarled and gnashed her teeth at him, before rolling over onto Gwyn.
He screamed as the women he loved pulled at his exposed rib – digging her fingers into the wound. Strings of blood hung from her drooping lower lip. Gwyn squeezed her throat and pushed her back, trying to fling her off. He shut his eyes and closed his mouth, not wanting any of her infected blood to get into him.
She stopped digging at his wound, and instead clawed at it. Gwyn shouted out as burning hot pain raked his body. His arm lost its grip and buckled. Sarah’s head fell forward, where she managed to bite into her husband’s injury. Again he wailed as he felt his side being chewed and ripped open. Then all of a sudden she was off him.
Dafydd stood over his mother, wrench in hand. Her mouth lay open, her tongue flopped to one side. She was out cold.
“Get the gun,” Gwyn said. “We have to get out of here.”
Dafydd rushed into the living room, picked up the gun and headed back to his father.
“Go upstairs and look in my wardrobe. On the shelf above, you’ll find boxes of bullets. Go and get them,” Gwyn managed.
Dafydd nodded, taking the wrench and leaving the gun. He ran upstairs, and into his parents’ room. It smelt of his mother’s perfume. The bed was a mess, and the curtains were drawn.
“Hurry, boy. We haven’t got much time.”
Dafydd routed through the large wardrobe and pulled out a rucksack. Then he found the bullets, and his father’s hunting knife. He threw everything into the bag. When he got back to the top of the stairs, he was just in time to see his father shoot his mother.
*
They went out into the street, which was still quiet, and headed down to Gwyn’s truck. Gwyn got in behind the wheel, and started it up.
“Where the hell are we going to go, Dad?”
“The airport.”
“Why?”
“They said on the news that they were running flights out of Cardiff all night.”
“But your side?”
“It’s only a small bite, bach.”
“I can’t believe mam…is…is…She almost killed you, Dad,” Dafydd said.
“Shh, come on now. We both know mam would never hurt either of us.”
“But…”
“That was not your mother back there, Dafydd. She was sick.”
He looked at his father, glassy eyed. “She killed Toni. Cut her,” he cried.
Gwyn tried to gulp the bow in his throat down. His wife and young daughter were dead.
“I know,” was all he could say.
Gwyn put the truck into reverse, and headed out to Cardiff airport.
The roads between their house and the airport were manic. Gwyn stuck to the quieter B-roads and lanes, trying to stay clear of built-up areas. When they were close, the pain in Gwyn’s side became unbearable. He pulled into a lay-by to inspect the wound.
He put the interior light on and lifted his shirt. The chunk of rib jutting out had snapped, and was just hanging there. Gwyn held his breath as he pulled the dangling bit of bone free.
“Pass me the first aid box, Dafydd, please.”
Dafydd opened the glove box, took the large, plastic container out, and gave it to his father.
“Will you be okay, Dad?”
“Yes, yes, fine, bach.”
Gwyn wrapped the injured area well with bandages after cleaning, and put gauze on it. He gave the box back to Dafydd, and continued with their journey. As they passed a chain-link fence with barbed wire on its top, which was part of the airport’s perimeter, Gwyn and Dafydd could see that the place had come under siege, it was a place of death and carnage; a refuelling truck out on the tarmac was on fire – its driver running around ablaze; a Boeing jet that appeared to have not long taken off could be seen plummeting out of the sky a few miles away, before hitting the ground and exploding into flames.
Hordes of sick people were on the runway, attacking those trying to board another Boeing. A hangar erupted in flames and the noise from the blast caused the glass to shatter in the terminal windows.
“Jesus,” Gwyn said.
“Is there much point in staying, Dad?”
“We have to try something, Dafydd. Look, over there,” Gwyn said, pointing to a handful of survivors, being led by what looked like pilots and cabin crew into a distant hangar.
Gwyn drove through the fence, which uprooted and tangled in the semi’s big wheels, and headed over to the hangar. They both jumped out of the truck, Dafydd with the gun and rucksack, and Gwyn with the crowbar. They ran to the big roller door and hammered on it, pleading to be let in, but nothing came from the other side.
“Dad!” Dafydd shouted, and Gwyn turned in time to see a pack of the infected running at them.
“Shit! We’ll never make it back to the lorry in time.”
“Look, there,” Dafydd said, pointing to a bit of upturned metal in an opposite hangar.
Dafydd managed to squeeze in. Once on the other side, he pushed at the opening to help his father in. They sat in the darkness for a while, listening to them outside, scrabbling at the walls.
“We’ll just rest for a while, get our breath back.”
“What are we going to do after that?”
“It’ll be light shortly. I say we wait until then, and then try to get back to the truck.”
Gwyn and Dafydd huddled against each other, and fell asleep for a couple of hours – until Gwyn woke in complete agony, shouting and screaming that the pain in his side was burning. Dafydd settled his father and undid his soaked bandages. The veins surrounding the bite mark were protruding through his father’s skin. The torn flesh wept pus that smelt rancid.
“I need to get your wound clean, Dad.”
Gwyn was barely conscious, and slipped back into sleep. Dafydd left his father’s side and scurried over to the hole in the side of the hangar – taking the rifle with him. He stuck his head out slowly and found the surrounding area clear. He scrambled through the opening some more until he could see more of the area outside – nothing.
He got to the lorry and found the medical kit in the glove compartment, along with a bottle of water on the floor. He rushed back to his ailing father, who was still passed out from the pain. Dafydd cleaned his father up, and reapplied fresh dressing.
“Dad,” he tried, shaking Gwyn softly by the shoulder. “Dad, mun. The coast is clear outside – if we go now we could make it to safety.”
Gwyn didn’t respond, and so Dafydd settled back down by his dad’s side, knowing they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere until his father was fit enough.
Chapter 14
“Maria,” Jeff called. “Can you come back up here, please?”
Maria excused herself from Dafydd and Amy, who were now chatting, and left them to it. When she got to the cockpit, Jeff had the handle to the CB radio in one hand, and was speaking into it.
“Welshlady, Welshlady, come in please,” Jeff said.
Maria took up the co-pilot’s seat once again, and put on the headset. She could feel the plane descending. The CB radio cracked and hissed as Jeff took his finger off the handle’s button. He was waiting for a reply.
“Welshlady?” Maria asked.
“Yeah, it’s her handle name.”
“Handle name?”
“That’s a name people give themselves on a CB radio.”
“Ah, right, got you.”
“You’ve never seen Convoy?” Jeff said.
“Erm, can’t say I have.”
“You should look into it. It’s a classic with Kris Kristofferson.”
“Hmm, I’m more of a Burt Reynolds fan myself,” she said, smiling.
“Burt Reynolds? How old are you again?”
“Ha-ha! I know. He was a passion of my dad’s – h
e loved the Cannonball Run films.”
“So it’s influence off your dad?”
“Yep.”
Jeff laughed, then put the handle back to his mouth and pushed down on the talk button. “Welshlady, Welshlady do you read me? Welshlady, Welshlady, come in please.” Jeff took his finger off the talk button, and hung it back on the CB.
“Maybe we need to drop down a bit more first?” Maria suggested.
“Yeah, I think you’re right. How’s Dafydd doing?”
“He seems okay; won’t tell me what happened though.”
“Poor boy.”
“Amy was chatting to him as I left them.”
“Once we get to my sister’s place, we should be safe.”
Maria nodded and looked out the window. She could see the ground now, but they were still pretty high up.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“We just flew over Glasgow and the Clyde Valley. Another fifteen-minutes or so, and we should be close to landing,” Jeff said, frowning.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m just worried because I can’t get hold of my sister.”
“What’s her name?”
“June, named after her birth month.”
“I like names like that,” Maria said. “I had an Auntie May, who died when I was young. I’ve just realised something, Jeff.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ve spent three days together now, and I don’t know anything about you.”
“What would you like to know?”
“Tell me about your parents. You know about mine.”
“Ok, well, my father was a lawyer, my mother a therapist.”
“Are they still alive?”
“No, my dad died when June was young, and our mother passed away two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“In a way I’m glad they are not here to see this mess.”
“So how long has your sister been living in Scotland?”
“She moved away when mam died – married James; a fisherman from Milford Haven.”
Walled In Page 15