Contamination

by Ryan Casey

  “Well, shit,” Gav said. “Looks like you might have something where it’s not supposed to be. How about we sort that for you?”

  A brief look of horror on Noah’s face.

  Gav turned to the man holding the glass. Nodded.

  And then the man yanked it out.

  Noah let out a cry. Blood poured from his shoulder as he rolled around on the ground.

  And Jasmine felt so bad for him. So much sympathy for him. She wanted to hold him. She wanted to tell him everything was okay.

  But all she could think about was how much shit they were in right now.

  “Now,” Gav said, stepping between them. “I’m a reasonable guy. I’m gonna tell you what I’m thinking. I see the pair of you, and I think you look... well. You look pretty healthy. You look okay. Which is good. It’s progress, right? You look a damned sight better than most, anyway.”

  “We’re not infected,” Jasmine said. “You can let us just walk away. You can let us just—”

  “But I see something else, too. You look like you’ve got plenty of supplies there. Stuff to get you by. Stuff you could use as compensation. Right?”

  Jasmine’s body tensed. She didn’t want to lose those supplies they’d worked so hard to gather. The trip to the supermarket couldn’t all be for nothing. Not after all they’d lost. “Please,” she said. “Just let us—”

  “No point trying to beg your way out of things with us, pretty,” Gav said, resting the cold top of the baseball bat on her forehead. “It’s pity and moping that got us all in this mess in the first place. So how about we do a deal, like proper grown-ups? No messing around. No blubbering. A proper deal.”

  She looked into this man’s eyes. Noah lay beside her, baseball back to his mouth, blocking him from speaking.

  “You give us your stuff,” Gav said. “And we let you go.”

  Jasmine shook her head. “We need that—”

  “All of us need stuff, pretty. Again. Let’s keep emotions out of this and be totally rational now, okay?”

  Jasmine shook her head. Looked at Noah again. At the blood creeping from his shoulder. At Barney, sitting between them, growling.

  “Your stuff. We want it. Give it us, and nobody needs to get hurt here. Hell, you can keep moving on to wherever the hell you’re going in this wasteland. You’re not gonna find much luck out here.”

  Jasmine saw that baseball bat to Noah’s face, and she felt torn. Because she knew how much they needed these supplies. The pragmatic side of her brain firing. The ruthless side of her brain firing.

  But then there was the other side.

  The side that desperately wanted to hold on to Noah.

  The side that wanted him to be okay.

  She felt her stomach sink, and she knew what she had to do.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Gav frowned. “What was that?”

  “I said, okay. Our stuff. Take it. Take... take it all.”

  A smile stretched across Gav’s face. And across the faces of his four friends, too. As they stood there in the midst of these cars, which were filled with bodies. The smell of rot in the air.

  “Wow,” Gav said. “That easy, huh?”

  And then he lifted that baseball bat and cracked it against Noah’s skull.

  “No!” Jasmine shouted.

  She jolted upright, but right away, she felt a punch to her face, knocking her to the road.

  Her head spun. The taste of blood filled her mouth. Metal in her throat, between her teeth. She felt dizzy. Disoriented.

  But she had to pull herself together.

  She had to help Noah.

  Gav laughed. “See, the thing is, we don’t need your permission to steal your shit.”

  He cracked the baseball bat against Noah’s head again.

  “And we certainly don’t need to do any deals. ’Cause this is our territory. And these are our rules here. And if you fuck with us...”

  He held that baseball bat in the air.

  Noah’s face bled. Badly.

  One more hit and Jasmine worried about what it might mean, as Barney kicked back, barked.

  She saw Gav standing there. Baseball bat over his head.

  And then she saw something else.

  Something that sent shivers up her spine.

  Something sudden.

  Blood pooled down Gav’s face, from his nostrils.

  And from his ears.

  And then from his bloodshot eyes.

  She looked up at him, and she saw the moment’s bafflement. The moment’s confusion.

  The realisation, as the blood touched his lips.

  As he tasted it.

  His face turning pale as it sank in.

  He stood there. Baseball bat prone over his shoulder, wobbling.

  And Jasmine knew she had a chance.

  So she kicked him in the balls.

  Hard.

  The baseball bat fell from his hands. Tumbled to her side.

  She saw the confusion around her. The hesitation.

  She lunged out. Grabbed that baseball bat.

  Swung it at one of the men before he could get to her. Hard.

  And then she grabbed Noah, and she scrambled under the nearest car, as the virus took hold of Gav.

  Then she felt a hand on her ankle.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Noah felt pain all over his body.

  His head split with agony. His couldn’t taste anything but blood. His nose was blocked, broken. His chest was tight. And his shoulder, his fucking shoulder, it was agony.

  But everything here had happened so quickly.

  First, falling off that car and a sharp shard of glass wedging into his shoulder.

  Being captured by Gav.

  Being attacked by him.

  And then... something happened.

  He’d only had a vague sense of what was happening in those unclear moments.

  Jasmine shouting something.

  Urging him to follow her under the car.

  And he’d conjured up all the strength he had to do so, even if he felt dizzy and weak right now.

  He sat under the car. His vision was blurry. His ears rang. He wanted to just stop for a minute. To just lie down. To get himself together.

  But he knew there was no time for that.

  “We need to get out of here, Noah,” Jasmine said. “We need to—”

  And then someone grabbed her ankle.

  Dragged her out from under the car.

  Noah’s skin crawled.

  He might feel weak, but he couldn’t just leave her to die.

  He grabbed that baseball bat from her hand.

  And then he crawled out of the other side of the car, focusing on his breathing, focusing on every single step.

  He crouched at the side of the car. Listened to the shouting. The crying out. Something was happening. He didn’t know what.

  But as he stood there, shaking, Barney by his side, he knew he had to find out.

  He looked around the side of the car.

  Jasmine was on the road.

  She was fighting off one of the men. Kicking back at him. Scratching his face, pulling his hair, biting.

  But that wasn’t even the most dramatic incident going down right now.

  The leader of this group—Gav—was bleeding from his eyes. His ears were like a tap. His face was a total mess of blood. His teeth dripped diluted red saliva. His arms and legs shook. And he kept on muttering incomprehensible things. Shouting out these guttural moans.

  He was crouching on top of one of his friends. Pushing his thumbs into the guy’s eyeballs as the guy lay there on the road, kicking out, screaming.

  Such anger in Gav’s eyes.

  Such fury.

  And such horror in his cries, too.

  Noah stepped around the car. He was still in pain, but his head felt a little clearer. He didn’t want to get closer to Gav. Didn’t want to risk falling victim to his wrath.

  But Jasmine.

  He
had to help her.

  He stepped around Gav. He wanted to help that guy he was gouging.

  But looking at the state of his face, looking at that thick red blood pooling out, and the way he kicked and screamed, it was already too late.

  He stepped around Gav and reached Jasmine.

  The man holding her had a knife.

  Held it over her.

  Noah didn’t even think.

  He brought that heavy metal baseball bat crashing down against the back of the guy’s skull.

  A thud.

  The knife dropped.

  The guy shook. Twitched. Let out a series of incomprehensible wails.

  And then he fell to the road, bleeding out from his nose.

  Noah reached for Jasmine’s hand. Helped lift her to her feet. But as he did, he felt that sharp pain in his shoulder again. So sharp, it almost knocked him back down to the road.

  “Come on,” he muttered. “We... we need to get away from here.”

  Jasmine looked at him. A little scratched. A little bruised. “Noah. Are you okay?”

  “We need to get away from here. Before...”

  He looked around at Gav. Saw him crouched over his friend. Thumbs still wedged in the guy’s eye sockets. The guy was still. Mouth open wide, an unvoiced scream stretched across his final expression.

  Gav lay on top of him. Muttering things. But quiet. Like he was in a world of his own.

  And like he was crying.

  “Come on,” Noah said, keeping hold of Jasmine’s hand. “Let’s... let’s keep going. Let’s get away from here.”

  They walked between the cars. Walked around the bodies. The smell of death in the air. The taste of blood smeared across Noah’s lips.

  He looked back at Gav. Just once. Looked back at that entire scene at the crossroads.

  And then he felt his vision blurring.

  And his legs shaking.

  “Noah?”

  “I’m...”

  He staggered to the left.

  Then to the right.

  And as much as he tried to stay on his feet, as much as he tried to maintain his composure, he fell to the road, and everything faded to darkness...

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bruce saw the medical centre in the distance, and a smile crossed his face.

  It was getting late. It was the middle of summer, so at least they got plenty of daylight. He wasn’t ready for the night. Not until he got what he needed from this place.

  He looked at the modern-looking white buildings. The delivery vehicles parked out front. The tall metal fences surrounding it. Amazingly, this place looked untouched. There was no smashed glass. There were no bodies lying around the place. Sure, it was in the middle of nowhere, which added to its elusiveness.

  Everything was quiet. Silent, but for the slight breeze against the trees. For the occasional call of a crow.

  “Is this the place, Daddy?”

  Bruce looked around at Sadia, and he smiled. Because this place looked ideal. It looked perfect. It looked like the kind of place that he could turn into a home, at least for now.

  There were supplies here, hopefully. Enough to get his daughter through for as long as possible.

  And they were in the countryside. They could hunt. They could fish. They could find ways to be self-sustainable. They could find ways to survive.

  He clung on to that hope, as much as he knew it was probably futile. As much as he knew it was probably unlikely.

  And as much as he knew how damned temporary all this was...

  No. He couldn’t look at things that way. He couldn’t accept the reality that his daughter was a ticking timebomb, and one day the medicine was going to run out, one day there was going to be nothing he could do for her, one day—

  “No!” he said.

  Sadia looked at him. Frown across her forehead. Confusion smeared across her little face.

  “Sorry,” Bruce said. “I... Yes. This is it. This is the place. We’re going to be okay here. We’re going to stay here for a while. How’s that sound?”

  Sadia looked around at the fence. Looked at the medical centre beyond it. “It looks okay. But I don’t think there’s gonna be many games there, is there?”

  Bruce chuckled. He rubbed the back of Sadia’s neck. “We’ll figure out our own games. How’s that sound?”

  Sadia smiled back. “I like that.”

  “Then come on then. Let’s go down there. Let’s see what we can find. And let’s see if we can make it our home.”

  He cut through the fence. Made sure he closed it up when he was done. He was starting to think long-term about this place, even though he hadn’t even been inside and checked it out yet. He knew he should center himself. Not get too carried away. He was guilty of getting carried away in the past. Samantha used to always accuse him of getting grand ideas above his station, whether it was a playhouse in the garden for Sadia or a vast array of Christmas decorations that were far too expensive and far too impractical to run.

  But Bruce always enjoyed getting lost in his little fantasies. In a way, he didn’t think he’d ever have met Samantha in the first place if he hadn’t allowed himself to get carried away a little.

  They walked down the hill. Bruce kept on checking his surroundings, seeking out some kind of movement. He knew this place seemed quiet, but he’d thought that about places in the past and been proven wrong.

  He crept further down that hill. Kept on searching, kept on scanning.

  It was only when he reached the vehicles that he allowed his guard to drop a little.

  He opened the back door of the first of the vehicles.

  When he saw what was inside, his heart skipped a beat.

  Medical supplies for delivery. Tons of them.

  And in amongst them, insulin.

  Lots and lots of insulin.

  He smiled. Closed the door to that car, moved on to the next vehicle, and found more.

  And then he found more in the next, his smile widening, the sense that he’d found a hidden treasure growing and growing within.

  “What is it, Daddy?” Sadia asked.

  “It’s the good stuff,” he said. “It’s going to keep you safe. Keep us both safe.”

  He saw the delight in his daughter’s eyes. Even though she didn’t understand her own mortality—even though she didn’t really get just how reliant her body was on these shots—she saw his delight, and she mirrored him.

  And that broke his heart.

  He looked around at the medical centre. The doors closed. No sign of movement. No sign of life.

  He looked at the trees around. The countryside. The woods. The solitude. The visibility.

  He looked at it all, and he smiled.

  “We’re going to be okay here,” he said. “We’re going to be safe here.”

  He was going to defend this place.

  He was going to make it his.

  No matter what.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Noah woke to a slap across the face.

  He opened his eyes. Bright light made him squint and squeeze them back shut right away. His head ached like mad. Felt like he’d been hit by a bus. Which was something he knew a lot about this past week. Hit by so many frigging buses it wasn’t even funny anymore.

  His throat was all thick with saliva and blood. And his shoulder... his damned shoulder. It ached like mad.

  But when he opened his eyes again, he realised Jasmine was sitting beside him.

  Barney was sitting beside him.

  Wherever they were, wherever this was, they were safe.

  Or at least, safer than they were at the crossroads.

  “What happened?” Noah asked.

  “You passed out. Had to drag your skinny arse out here.”

  Noah looked around. They were in the middle of a field, right beside a tree. All very flat, all very open. “Hope to God there’s not a lightning storm while we’re here.”

  “If there is, it would be pretty fucking typical, would
n’t it?”

  Noah rubbed the back of his neck. Winced right away upon feeling the sharp pain in his back. “Shoulder’s hurting like mad.”

  “It’ll be a bit sore for a while. Did my best job stitching it up.”

  Noah frowned. “You stitched my shoulder up?”

  “Try sounding a touch more grateful why don’t you?”

  “Sorry,” Noah said. “I just... how did you—”

  “Dental floss,” Jasmine said. “Didn’t really know what I was doing. Just did my best job sealing it up. It doesn’t look all that bad, to be honest. Don’t think the glass went as deep as it might’ve done. Might teach you a thing or two about being clumsy, though.”

  Noah nodded. “Yeah, well, it hurts like shit. Way worse than my knee ever hurt.”

  “I’m worried it might get infected,” Jasmine said. “You were lucky with your knee. I don’t know if you’ll get lucky twice.”

  Noah shrugged. “Not something we have the luxury of worrying about right now.”

  “There’s a place,” Jasmine said.

  “What?”

  “A medical distribution centre not far from here. A little back towards Grimsargh way. They do deliveries. That kind of thing. I did work experience there when I was at school. Boring as shit. But it’s pretty isolated. And it isn’t well known about. It might be what we need right now. A chance to get some antibiotics.”

  Noah shook his head. “You know what the plan is. Kelly. Eddie.”

  “That was the plan. Before you lived up to your clumsy bastard name and went and got some glass wedged in your shoulder. And jeez, the state of your face.”

  “What about it?”

  “Let’s just say you look like you’ve been hit by a baseball bat a couple of times. You could do with some painkillers. I know all about your low pain threshold. Don’t want to have to listen to you whinging all the way to Broughton.”

  Noah opened his mouth to protest, and then he sighed. “This is one of those battles I’m not going to win, isn’t it?”

  “You remember those?”

  “All too well,” Noah said.

  Jasmine sat down beside him and sighed. “That guy. Gav. He turned, just like that. Do you ever wonder if…”