by Rick Wood
Then again…
Do I want to live?
What would be the purpose?
The point?
The function?
Their feet bashed against the steps, coming toward him so fast, yet it didn’t feel so fast, it felt drawn-out, slow motion, like a film moving frame by frame.
He stood. Forced his heavy feet to wade into the bedroom.
And he saw it.
On the bookcase.
The Ever-present.
He took the book and threw it against the wall. He tore off the cover, the back cover, pulled at the spine, ripped out the pages. He did not stop until the room was littered with fallen pieces of fading, inked paper.
They entered the bedroom.
He ran to the window and leapt, landing atop the conservatory below. He slid down the glass roof and into the garden, landing painfully on his arm.
They must have heard him, as the garden was suddenly filled with them, streaming through the broken fence like water through a dam.
He sprinted to the fence and jumped, pulling himself up and landing in the garden of the next house over.
They didn’t seem to be able to jump the fence.
They could eat his neighbours, almost match the speed of a car, and kill his family – but they couldn’t leap a fence.
What the fuck is going on?
He kept running.
Leapt over another fence and landed in the adjacent field.
He paused.
Looked back at the bedroom window of his house.
What used to be his house.
Another step and the bedroom window would be out of sight.
His family would be gone.
Never buried. Left to rot in the hallway.
Decaying among pages of an awful book he had truly grown to treasure.
I love you.
His parting thought was interrupted by more snarls and he turned, and he ran, and he hid.
And, though he hung around in an alcoholic stupor for months afterwards, waiting for the right moment to die – he never forgot the sight of those faces.
He would always be a father – just a father without a daughter.
AFTER
Chapter Twelve
Whizzo awoke, sweating as he expected to be craving flesh.
He hadn’t any idea what it was like to be one of the infected, and he’d imagined that he would be far more absentminded than this; so, as thoughts rushed into his mind like water beating down a dam, he realised that he wasn’t infected.
And he realised that he wasn’t alone.
His feet hung off the end of a bumpy mattress in what he assumed was a child’s bedroom; what with the bright pink walls and the assortment of cuddly toys that were either destroyed or crusted with old blood.
“God, tell me this is a nightmare,” he said.
Desert smiled. She arose from her seat in the corner of the room and meandered to his bedside, perching on what little of the bed was left to perch on.
“Honestly,” she said, a slanted smirk etching toward her cheek, “I think it suits you.”
He tried sitting up, only to find his back in incredulous amounts of pain.
“How long?” Whizzo inquired.
“Not long,” she answered. “About a day.”
He nodded. Looked around again.
Pieces of battered toy horse lay across the floor, torn children’s books were left discarded on a beaten bookcase against the far wall, and the curtains, decorated with unicorns, were so ripped that it looked as if those unicorns had been savagely slaughtered.
“A whole day, and this is what you came up with?”
She chuckled.
“You know you lost it, right?”
“Lost what?”
She raised her eyebrows.
It took a few moments to understand what she meant. Then the memory came back.
He looked down. There, on his left hand, was a bandage covering the stump of a missing little finger.
It surprised him to find that he didn’t miss it that much. He could hardly complain to Gus about it – what with him missing a leg. Compared to that this was spilt milk. Tempestuously exploding, stormy spilt milk.
“You okay?” Desert asked.
He stared at his finger. Or, at least, the lack of it.
“Yeah,” he decided. “It’s not a big loss, is it? People have lost more.”
“It’s just a good job you’re not a lefty.”
“You kidding? I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.”
Desert snorted a laugh. “The nineties called, they want their joke back,” she teased, and he joined in the laughter.
The laughter was quickly halted by a set of thudding footsteps.
“Thought I heard voices,” said Gus as he entered. “Sorry for the room, was the only one not covered in blood and shit.”
Whizzo forced a smile, ignoring how deadly cold Desert had suddenly become.
“Time to get up then, mate,” Gus urged. “Need to make sense of the stuff we found.”
“He’s only just woken up,” Desert protested. “Give him a minute.”
“Fine,” Gus answered. “Have a minute. I’ll be downstairs.”
He left, leaving Desert shaking her head and narrowing her eyes into an intense glare.
“He’s right, you know,” said Whizzo. “We don’t know how much time we have.”
Desert grimaced; a mixture of annoyance at Gus, and annoyance at Whizzo’s acknowledgement of Gus’s correctness.
“He still doesn’t need to be a dick about it.”
Whizzo sighed. He turned his legs and pushed himself out of bed. Desert went to help him, but he waved his arm to stop her.
Desert had left a set of clothes out for him. Not in great condition, but no bloodstains – which was probably the best he could hope for.
He put them on.
“You know,” he said, doing up his belt, “whatever this is, going on with Gus… You have to quit it.”
“There’s nothing going on with–”
“Oh, give it a break.” He turned toward her and placed his hands on his hips. “You’ve been giving him the evil eye every chance you get. I see it. He sees it. Hell, even Sadie probably bloody sees it.”
“Yeah, well,” was all she could muster.
“We need to work together.”
“But it’s not that simple, is it?”
“I don’t know, see, because I don’t know what your problem is.”
Desert’s arms folded and her glare turned to Whizzo.
“We lost Prospero and you can’t figure it out?”
He stopped moving. Leant against the wall. Huffed. Bowed his head.
She had a point.
Not a helpful one, but she had one.
“I hate what happened to Prospero,” admitted Whizzo. “Then again, there’s a lot of things I hate. But there’s no way Gus could have known.”
“And say we are confronted with Donny again, and he kills one of us. What do you think Gus would do to Donny then? Would he be prepared to stop him?”
He gave a big, non-committal shrug.
“I don’t know, Desert. I don’t know. Why don’t you try asking him?”
She went to object, but he stopped her.
“Either way, it needs to stop.”
She went to object again, but he opened the door and walked out.
“I have work to do,” he told her as he left.
Chapter Thirteen
Gus left Whizzo to work as he went in search of water, and it didn’t take him long until he found a nearby stream. The house was still visible behind him, though ‘house’ was a loose term; it was barely a shack. Unfortunately, they hadn’t the luxury of fussiness as they’d fled the facility, what with an unconscious Whizzo over his shoulder.
He held the container under the water for long enough for it to fill to the brim. He lifted it to his dry, cracked lips and relished the feel of water plunging down his throat
. The water was by no means clean and did not taste at all sanitary – but one learns to live with the provisions they have, and he was grateful for it.
He refilled the container and trudged back to the house. He entered to find Whizzo sat at a table with pieces of paper scattered across it. Gus would offer to help, as he was sure Desert would – but this was not their area of expertise. He was far better at the fighting and the killing, and all these notes would mean very little to him.
Sadie was cuddled up in a ball in the corner of the room with her eyes closed. How she could nap so easily Gus did not know. He woke her briefly to give her some water, for which she was grateful, then she went straight back to sleep.
He passed the water to Whizzo, who drank it in gulps before resuming his work.
Next, he looked around for Desert.
“Where’s Desert?” he asked.
“Here,” came a voice and she emerged in the doorway.
Gus handed her the container, watching her warily as he did.
“Cheers,” she said, and took a few large swigs of water.
“Hey, Gus,” Whizzo said.
“Yeah?”
“Desert wanted to talk to you about something.”
Gus turned to Desert. She huffed and shot Whizzo a look that clearly said thanks, dickhead.
“What?” Gus prompted.
Desert said nothing. She went to speak, but she sighed and stopped herself.
“It’s about Donny,” Whizzo said.
“Donny?” Gus repeated. “What about him?”
Desert shook her head, refusing to engage.
“Desert has been a bitch toward you because she has a different opinion,” Whizzo continued, prompting more angry glances from Desert. “Look, I’m just fed up of this, and want to get your grief sorted. You two need to work together, after all.”
Whizzo looked to Gus, then to Desert, then resumed his work.
Damn, the kid was annoying – but the kid was also right.
“Come on then,” said Gus. “He’s got a point. What’s going on?”
Desert shook her head and made her way across the room, as if to go do something, despite there being nothing for her to do.
“Stop walking away from me,” Gus insisted. “You are doing my nut in. Either tell me what’s going on, or…”
“Or what?”
Gus met her glare.
“Or piss off. You’re not doing any of us any favours.”
“That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? It’s not like I can say what’s on my mind. To you, it’s not even a discussion.”
“This about Donny?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what is there to discuss?”
Desert huffed. For a second, she looked as if she was about to answer. Instead, she turned her head away and shook it, biting her lip.
“Spit it out,” Gus insisted.
“So, say we find Donny, yeah?”
“We will find Donny.”
“Okay, so when we do find him – what then?”
Gus frowned. He didn’t understand her point.
“What do you mean, what then?”
“Well, what happens when we find him?”
“We take him. We capture him back from Eugene Squire and we undo whatever was done to him.”
She shook her head with even more vigour.
“So we save him, yeah?” she said, her speech getting quicker and more full of spite. “You’re saying we should save him?”
“Of course.”
“Have you forgotten what he did?”
“What do you mean what he–”
“I’m talking about killing Prospero. You may not have known him for long, but Prospero was our friend, and I miss him. And Donny led us all into a trap and killed him.”
“And I’m sorry for that happening.”
“Say one of our friends dragged you into a trap, and it was Sadie who was killed – what then?”
Gus looked to Sadie, whose head roused for a moment, then sunk back into her nap.
“I don’t get what you’re saying,” Gus said, even though he did; he just wanted to hear her say it.
“I’m questioning whether Donny is someone we save. Or whether it’s someone we…”
“What?”
She looked to the floor.
“What? Go on, say it.”
“Kill.”
Gus paced, his fingers digging into his palm, attacked by a scurry of poisonous thoughts. He willed himself to think clearly, to think straight – but his mind was a sudden mess, and he struggled to contain that mess from spilling out of his mouth.
“I know it’s not what you want to hear,” Desert said.
“You don’t have any fucking idea what I want to hear,” Gus barked, saliva bursting from beneath his teeth with each plosive.
“But let me just ask you a question, yeah?”
It was Gus’s turn to shake his head. He did not stop pacing.
“If he was bitten by one of the infected, and started to turn – what would you do?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Gus did not want to answer.
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”
“My point is,” Desert began, stepping forward, growing in confidence, “that you would not go out there and try and reason with one of the infected. You wouldn’t go out there and try to compromise or talk them down. You’d kill them.”
“It’s not the same.”
“But it is. He just has an enhanced version of the infection. He’s still one of them.”
Gus punched a glass cabinet, smashing it to a hundred pieces. Shards of glass sprayed over his knuckles, cutting his hand, but he felt none of it. He did not care for the pain or for what the sound may have attracted. It was all he could do not to direct the fist at Desert.
Instead, he marched up to her, standing in her personal space, towering over her, and jabbed his finger with each word he said.
“We work together,” he growled. “We fight together. We go down together. Fine. But let me make this clear – try to kill Donny, and I will kill you.”
She said nothing. She didn’t back off or step forward. She just stood there, looking up at his wounded visage.
“I repeat. I. Will. Kill. You.”
They remained in that position for longer than was comfortable, neither being the first to move or step away.
Luckily for them, Whizzo was the one to break the confrontation.
“Guys,” he said. “I think I have something.”
Chapter Fourteen
Whizzo was grateful for the end of the argument. He was pleased they were talking through their issues, but the exchange had become less than productive.
“You want to hear it?” Whizzo prompted.
Both Gus and Desert approached the table, pausing at either side – avoiding eye contact and close proximity.
Sadie awoke, stretched, and sauntered over, also seemingly interested; despite how little she would probably understand.
“So it looks like the facility wasn’t the only place they had labs,” Whizzo said. “There’s this compound, here, that I think they may be using.”
He pointed to a map and noticed his missing finger again. He’d become so used to the constant stinging he’d forgotten it wasn’t there, and the sight of it was a strange reminder that he’d never see that finger again.
“That’s not far,” Gus said. “A few miles, if that.”
“Thing is, though, we might want to be careful,” Whizzo said. In all honesty, he always wanted to be careful, and was dreading another fight, and was in two minds about whether to even reveal the next bit of information.
“What?” Gus prompted, awaiting Whizzo’s further explanations.
Ah, well. Best get to it.
He pulled out a sheet of paper displaying an outline of a person and a list of chemicals.
“This is what I think they are trying to make.”
&
nbsp; “What is it?” Desert asked, peering over his shoulder and ignoring a scowl from Gus.
“It’s… well, Donny. But not.”
“What do you mean, but not?” Gus asked.
“As in, it’s Donny, but… better.”
“Better?”
“More powerful, I mean.”
Gus grabbed the sheet and looked at it, as if it would mean anything to him.
“So you think…” Gus said, unable to order his thoughts.
Whizzo did it for him.
“I think Donny could just be the start. Maybe even a prototype.”
“They are wanting to make more?”
Whizzo shrugged, leant back in his chair, and raised his hands indecisively.
“Could be. I don’t know. Just hypothesising.”
Gus rubbed his chin. Desert stood thoughtfully with her hands on her hips. Both of them looked at Whizzo, and still not at each other.
“And there’s another thing. It keeps talking about a date that’s around a week’s time, probably less. I don’t know what that is, but I think, in fact, I’m certain…”
Whizzo dreaded saying what he was about to say, but knew he had to say it anyway.
“I’m fairly positive,” he continued, closing his eyes and trying to think of any way he didn’t have to say this, “that this is where we could find Donny.”
“Are you certain?”
“Certain? No, I’m not certain of anything. But there’s a link between the compound and this design, and this design involves Donny, and… Well, I think it’s a pretty good shot.”
Gus finally looked to Desert. She returned his stare. Both of them like two cats in an alleyway, suddenly alert to each other’s presence.
“Do you think you coming is a good idea?” Gus asked her.
Desert scoffed. “I’m coming.”
“Fine. But my instructions are clear.”
“You’re not the boss.”
“We leave in the morning,” Gus said, ignoring her comment. “It’s starting to get dark and we need some rest. As soon as the sun’s up, we go. Just to stake it out. No decisions yet, we need to see what we’re dealing with.”
He turned to Sadie, who was beaming up at him.
“Hear that?” he said. “Sun up, time to go. Yeah?”
She nodded.