by Wood, Kolin
Sitting there now, smelling the acrid odour of burning and the faint char of cooking flesh, Juliana felt numb.
Rats.
If she had not seen it for herself, she would have struggled to believe it. Every time she dared to believe that things could get better, she found herself plunged down into a place so dark that it made it seem impossible that light would ever penetrate through to her again.
The wailing sound of a woman crying from down below stirred her from her thoughts. John glanced up and their eyes met. She forced a smile and he did the same. Beneath him, Becca stirred.
“I know a place,” he said in a whisper. “A safe place. We can go there.”
Juliana continued to look at him.
Safe.
Soon he would realise that there was no such place.
“Is… is it over?” Becca asked, rubbing her face with the back of her hand and turning her head on John’s leg. “How long was I out?”
“Not long,” Juliana said, turning her attentions to the girl, unwilling to entertain the notion of safety for a moment longer.
John scowled at the snub, but she ignored him, too tired to argue.
“The rats… and the crazies… they don’t like the light. We should be okay now.” Becca looked up at the sky and sat up quickly.
Juliana looked up also, and then nodded. She knew that there was no way that they could stay up on the roof, but she was not sure that she was ready to see what was left of the square.
With knots in her joints, she rolled her shoulders and stood up, offering down a hand, which John refused. She watched him as he chose to stand with difficulty on his own instead.
Juliana considered him for a moment. He’d understand, one day. Then, taking a breath, she turned for the ladder and prepared herself for the worst.
***
They picked their way through the carnage, Juliana out in front, the other two following closely behind. Every few steps, they were met with another corpse. Men and women—thankfully, no children that she could see—littered the ground like the scene of some middle-ages battlefield. Bodies disfigured by knives and guns, partly devoured and devoid of skin and flesh, lay twisted in unnatural positions where they had fallen. Limbs, some attached, others lying loose, offered up missing fingers and toes.
The now dark cobblestones felt slippery underfoot. Some of the rats, those too drunk on blood, or too greedy or confused to follow the rest of the pack back into the safety of the shadows, scurried away as the boots approached, their bravery gone along with their numbers.
As she struggled to keep her balance, Juliana noted that the rats were far smaller and meeker than the aggressive ones that had challenged them last night. Those—the ones that had eaten Charlie—had not backed down, even when shot at. She wondered if they were the leaders. Perhaps, like people, the rats followed some sort of natural, size-driven hierarchy.
In the centre of the square, a large man wearing a red, plaid shirt sat rocking on a chair, his blistered head cradled between blood-stained hands. His big shoulders shook as he sobbed and Juliana noticed the blood-covered stock of a rifle at his feet; it looked like Tanner’s rifle.
She stopped next to the man, reached out, and set a hand on one of his shaking shoulders. The man looked up, his tired, lined eyes filled with tears.
“There were too many of them,” he said, as his eyes searched hers for answers. “Too many of them. I tried to…”
Juliana bent down and picked up the rifle. The man watched her do it, barely registering.
“This gun,” she said. “Where did you get it from?”
But the man continued to shake his head. “But there were just too many of them,” he repeated.
He’s shot away, Juliana thought, setting the rifle back down next to him again. Not surprising given what he’s just been through.
Unwilling to push him further, she stood and turned to face the row of blackened buildings. Looking at the charred remains, now she thought that perhaps Tanner making it back to the square was the worst thing that could have happened.
Juliana turned to look at Becca and John as they hobbled behind her. The two of them suited the horrific backdrop perfectly; John with his half shaved head covered with scabs, the worst of the two. He stopped, his eyes questioning hers.
“You need to go and find some medical supplies,” Juliana said, turning to Becca and gesturing down at John’s bandaged hands. “If infection sets in, it’ll be bad news.”
John frowned, agitated at being talked about. Becca looked around, bewildered.
“I thought you said there were supplies,” she said.
Juliana’s face saddened. “I thought there were.”
“So, if there’s no supplies, let’s find your friend and get the hell outta here!” John said angrily, drawing a scowl from Becca.
Juliana nodded. “I’ll go see. You guys find… something.” Her voice trailed off.
She felt numb. As she twisted and turned through the bodies and debris, her mind drifted. She could understand the boy’s agitation. The place was destroyed. Any semblance of a normal existence, gone. And she’d stupidly thought that they would be able to make a new start? What a fool. Perhaps Tanner had been right after all with all the detachment. Maybe the only way to survive was to keep moving, to never stop.
Don’t help and don’t look back.
The thought darkened her soul.
Ahead, the blackened steps to the block led up to a buckled metal doorframe. Soot coated everything that she could see, stretching up with creeping talons, past the top floor and onto the roof. The residual heat from the smouldering building warmed her face and arms.
Juliana glanced back across the space, hoping for a final glimpse of her son and Becca, but was unable to see them amongst the growing crowd of mourners. The girl still wore her jacket. It would have proved useful now against the heat. Momentarily she considered not going inside but quickly dismissed the idea.
Tanner could be in there. He could still be alive.
Pulling her arm across her chest, Juliana made her way up the steps and ducked inside the building. The place felt like a furnace. The walls were still smoking. The old wall paper, curled up and as dry as parchment, had acted better than gasoline, spreading the fire like dry brush inside. As she trod, her feet crunched, leaving footprints in the soot ash. Several bodies, burned beyond recognition, lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs, but Juliana barely looked as she moved past them towards the room which had once held their barrow and supplies.
As she approached the room, she slowed. Bullet holes riddled the wall outside. The door was missing—burnt away to cinders. The charred, wooden frame held red embers that hissed and popped warnings as she neared.
Inside the room every visible surface had burned to black. Juliana shielded her eyes from the aggravating smoke, while scouring for anything of use. In the middle, a pile of burning coals and some blackened steel banding was all that remained of the barrow. On the floor close to the door, barely visible amongst the burned waste, lay a pistol and empty magazine.
Juliana glanced back at the wall behind her again and took in the bullet holes. They were low; knee height at best. Somebody had made a stand here. Somebody had been inside the room, firing the gun.
For a brief moment, her heart lifted in her chest. Could it be possible that Tanner had made it down here? Turning her attentions back to the room, Juliana covered her mouth and nose with her hand and stepped inside.
The heat was almost unbearable on her bare skin. She was sure that she could feel the hairs on her arms singe and curl up. And that was when she saw the skeleton. Twisted in the corner, the skull looked up at her with deep eyeless sockets, its jawbone twisted in an open-mouthed scream. Blackened strips of flesh hung in clumps from the hairless dome of its head, its clothes and skin completely burned away.
The urge to vomit came hard, and she ran from the room, past the bodies at the bottom of the steps, and back out into the s
quare, where the air tasted only marginally better.
She shuddered, sucking in a deep breath, her worst fears realised.
Tanner was dead.
All their stuff, burned to cinders.
Her heart hurt. It felt like it was beating out of time.
Just then, a child—a little girl—her face black with soot, ran past her knees, a dirty toy bear clutched in her thin arms. Juliana stood and watched the girl run, twisting through the bodies and burned husks as if jumping logs in a woodland, her long, blonde hair streaking out behind.
This is normal, now.
Juliana’s cheeks ached with tears but none flowed, their ducts having run dry in the night. The child stopped to pick something up, turned the item over in her dirty paws and put it in the pocket of her jacket.
We are scavengers.
Shouting erupted from the other side of the square. A crowd had gathered, and Juliana found herself gravitating toward it along with anybody else within earshot.
The building, consisting of grey slab and broken windows with straight, formal lines, looked like a municipal centre. A library, perhaps, she thought. At the front, people stood jostling and jeering as the man in the red shirt from earlier and several others that she did not recognise walked from the large, smashed entryway. Strung between them they carried something heavy, and their red cheeks looked puffed from exertion.
Once the group had moved into full view, they stopped, dropping the load unceremoniously at the top of the steps. It squirmed and let out a piercing shrill scream. Juliana felt the hairs on the nape of her neck stand up. They caught one.
The man in the red shirt looked up at the gathered faces, his eyes alight with madness. “Like gutless cowards, the men that attacked us last night have run off to hide!” he shouted, reaching down to grab at the thing on the floor. He hoisted it up and held it by the scruff of the neck.
Juliana saw the shaved head and yellow-tinged skin. Its hands and feet had been tied behind its back. It thrashed its head side to side, eyes squeezed closed, mouth snapping at anything.
All around her, the people became animated to the point of crazy.
“Kill him!”
“Coward!”
“Gut it! Gut the bastard!”
The screams continued, saturated with grief and anger.
The man in the red shirt dropped the thing and swung his boot into its side. “Now, I don’t know where these fuckers came from. But what I do know is that I will not stop until every single last one of them has been dragged out here and taken care of.” With his face contorted, he planted a boot down on the back of the squirming monster, pinning it to the floor. Then, to the sound of cheering, he pulled a large cleaver from the waistband of his jeans. He flashed teeth as he raised it high above his head and swung it down in a deadly arc. The crack of the skull sounded over the noise of the crowd. Blood sprayed up into the man’s face as the head was cleaved almost in half. Immediately it stopped writhing and fell dead.
“You see?!” he screamed. “They bleed and die just like us!”
Arms pumped the air as the people jostled one another for a better view.
“We will not let this destroy what we have built here!”
Uncomfortable in the scrimmage, Juliana fought her way backward until she was free of the barging, her heart heavy at the sight of the blood lust. The mob would not be satisfied until they were sated. And she, more so than anybody, was in no position to judge the need for vengeance. She’d spent most of the life that she could remember with that same desire to kill hung like a sign before her eyes. And these people had come further than most; rebuilt their lives to within a recognisable distance of their former selves. Hell, they had a right to be angry. She herself had only had a taste of it, and she felt devastated at the loss.
“What about the rats?” somebody shouted. “How are we gonna deal with the rats?”
But Juliana had heard enough. With her head bowed, she turned back to the square, almost walking into Becca, who was now stood behind her watching the spectacle, her face stern. John was nowhere to be seen.
“This is how it begins,” Becca said. “They have no idea what is coming for them.”
“Is there nothing they can do?” Juliana asked.
Becca looked at her with sad eyes and shook her head. “The pack is growing. They’ll stay until the food runs out.”
“And the men? The crazies?”
Becca shrugged. “The rats will kill them too, eventually. But I think they can tell if a person is sick. They don’t tend to eat the ones with the yellow skin.”
Juliana opened her mouth to speak but no words formed. The implications of what she was being told suddenly weighed in on her. The Refuge had already fallen; they just didn’t know it yet.
“Where’s John?” she asked.
Becca motioned to a building behind. “Getting his hands seen too; there’s a nurse, a real one. Said he’s gonna be okay.”
Juliana nodded and tried to make sense of her thoughts. They could not give up. She could not give up. They had to keep going, to keep moving, to wherever that might take them. She owed it to her son, to her dead husband, to Tanner.
“What about this place?” she said. “John mentioned some safe place.”
Becca frowned. “It’s a farm, somewhere in the far north. John said he walked for days without seeing a single soul. When I met him he strolled into town like he was taking a walk to see some friends, not a care in the world. Him and that stupid dog of his.”
Juliana considered what she was being told.
Walked for days?
“So, the rats are moving down from the North. Then why did he come here?”
Becca’s eyes fell to the floor and her shoulders sagged. “My brother asked him to take me back up there with him, but John said that he needed to find his friend, Ryan. He offered to drop me at my uncle’s farm on the way. But, that didn’t really go to plan.”
Juliana could tell by Becca’s body language that the mention of her family had struck a nerve, and she didn’t push. “Did he find Ryan?” she asked.
Becca shook her head. “Ryan went inside that place.” The statement lay heavy with unspoken intent. When she looked up into Juliana’s eyes, there were tears.
This time it was Juliana’s turn to feel the hurt. Tanner was gone but John had lost his people too. All that any of them had now was each other.
Becca continued. “What shall we do?”
Juliana looked around at the chaos and the anger, smelled the taint of burnt flesh and buildings, and laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, her mind made up.
“I say we go find this farm,” she said.
Chapter 38
The congestion of the city, the press of the buildings and thick smell of destruction fell away, as the three of them moved beyond the centre and pushed out into the suburbs in the direction of the northern perimeter. Even five minutes out, the air seemed to clear some. Between them, they had managed to scavenge a small bag of supplies for the journey; a bottle of water, some spare clothing, and even a little food.
The fresh bandages, applied gently by a nice woman with a long silver plait who’d asked for nothing in return, felt firm and tight on John’s hands. The deep throbbing pain had subsided somewhat, helped in part by the consistent pressure of the wraps, but also from the pain killers, which had left him feeling heavy and warm. It was almost as if somebody had wrapped soft towels around his head.
John thought as he walked, his face aching from an inset scowl.
His mother had finally succumbed to his idea and agreed to leave, although he could not help but feel that it had been against her better judgment. He could see it in her eyes and the way her shoulders appeared to droop with every step they took. The farm was a risk, an unknown quantity, and he was not sure that she trusted him to see them all safe.
Juliana now walked out in front and, with her usual apparent belligerence, had insisted that he remain back a few paces, out of harm’s
way. When John had started to protest, Becca had given him one of ‘those’ looks. It seemed that the pair had struck up quite the close bond and, for reasons he couldn’t explain, their friendship bothered him.
Having reclaimed her jacket, Juliana still held onto the shotgun, which she carried draped over the sleeve of one arm. Becca followed closely behind, the trusted crossbow slung on a strap across her back. A sheath of bolts clattered against her leg, a comforting and constant reminder of her presence.
Looking at it now, John longed for his own crossbow. Then he would be able to show them what he could do. So far, his mother had seen him captured and then drop a rock on the head of an injured man—hardly the stuff of heroes. She had not been present for his rescue of Becca at the farm, or seen him fight off the rabid dog. Had she, then perhaps she would not have insisted on continually sheltering him so much. And Bec was no better. After all he had rescued her first. It would do her well to remember that.
As the roads widened, the gaps between the buildings became big enough to include some small gardens at the front and rear. Birds squawked above, but otherwise the suburb remained quiet, eerily so. He thought that it had been the same on their way into the city, but was sure that he’d the odd rabbit bounding around or a fox skulking from view. Now, the land appeared to have been stripped of life.
Maybe the rats have eaten all of the other animals, he mused. Perhaps the appetite of the pack knew no bounds. After all, they had no way of knowing how big it had gotten. He glanced up at the overcast sky as he walked and a shiver rolled down his spine.
How far away are we from the nest?
“Motorway is this way,” Juliana said, pointing up at a sign. Ahead, the road turned abruptly left.
Along with their other meagre belongings, the group had managed to lay their hands on a tattered map. -Undetailed, it only showed the main routes and highways, but it had given them a rough idea as to the scope and seriousness of their journey. Using it as reference, they had agreed to follow the motorway north, not stopping until they found the town where John had first met Becca. They would then pick up the train tracks and use them to travel back to their terminus, whereby John would be able to lead them to the farm. Apart from a check in on the car park where they had last seen Becca’s brother, Saul, they would not stop to rest anywhere where there might be other people, not until the journey was complete. Juliana had estimated that they might be able to make it the entire way in five days, if they pushed hard. John doubted that to be the case, but had said nothing.