by Ryan Casey
“And what about loss?” Paul asked.
“What?”
“Loss. True loss. Have you ever felt true loss?”
Noah thought of Jasmine.
He thought of burying that knife into her.
Just as she’d asked.
But hearing her snarl.
Hearing her infected cries.
And then seeing her standing again, just metres from where he’d laid her to rest…
“Don’t talk to me about loss.”
Paul looked back. Smiled. “I thought so. You’ve lost a lot, haven’t you?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“If there’s one thing that unites us, it’s loss. But imagine if you could prevent any more loss. Imagine if you could change things. Imagine if…”
Noah wasn’t listening to any more of this shit.
He marched forward.
He slammed that gun against the back of Paul’s skull.
Knocked him right down to the ground.
Pressed it. Right against his head.
“Noah,” Kelly said.
But he didn’t hear her.
He didn’t hear anything.
Not anymore.
He only saw Paul.
He only saw Jasmine.
He only felt that temptation.
“Go on,” Paul said. “Do it. Follow your instincts. I’m as good as dead anyway.”
“Noah,” Kelly said, hand on his arm. “Please. Don’t do this. I know you want to, but don’t.”
But he’d seen red.
He just wanted release.
He just wanted revenge.
“Trust it,” Paul said. “Trust that instinct. Follow it. You know it’s good for you. You know…”
And then in the confusion, in the redness, in the chaos, Noah heard a voice.
A voice he recognised.
A voice he knew.
And it wasn’t Kelly.
“Noah?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eddie walked through the woods, Zelda, Tim, Bill, and Barney by his side, and he wondered how the hell today had got so damned weird so damned fast.
But then he figured nothing was beyond the realms of weird damned possibility. Not anymore.
The sky was thick with grey clouds. The sun kept on trying to peek through. It was still warm. Humid. Clammy. His chest felt tight. Every now and then, he’d feel a sharp pain surging its way through his body. Enough to remind him of the state he was in. Enough to remind him that he wasn’t the healthiest of guys. Enough to remind him that something might happen to him at any moment. His heart. It couldn’t be healthy. He was overweight. His family had history of heart complications. The odds were stacked against him. He was in trouble. In danger. In—
“Anyone for a game of I Spy or anything?” Bill said. “Something to break up the monotony of the journey?”
Eddie glared around at him. So too did Zelda and Tim. Even though Eddie had a reputation as being the joker, even he found Bill’s suggestions stupid. Especially considering the circumstances.
Tim had just lost his brother and his uncle within a day of one another.
He was alone with a group of people he barely even knew.
But then Eddie knew how being alone felt all too well.
He hadn’t known Tim or Zelda before, after all. Or Bill.
They were all nomads.
They were all lost.
They were all just trying to find somewhere.
Something.
Searching for meaning in a world lacking it, again and again.
“No?” Bill said. “I mean, I guess we’re pretty limited. Sky. Trees. Cars. Dead bodies. Not like there’s plenty to look at, huh?”
Nobody answered him.
Well. Zelda did. She rolled her eyes. That was an answer in itself.
“What’s your story, anyway?” Eddie asked.
Bill glanced back around at him. “You play I Spy, and I’ll tell you my story.”
“Mate,” Eddie said. “As much as I’m for fun and games, nobody’s playing frigging I Spy right now. Okay?”
Bill smiled. “Fair. My story’s pretty standard. Went to work on the building site one day and found my boss clawing my mate’s eyes out. Next thing I know, the news is going crazy. The whole damned world gone mad, apparently. Something in the air. Or in the water. I don’t know. Nobody knows. Just that it’s spreading.
“So I head home. Get my wife and my kid and lock the doors up. Then we wait. Wait for help. Run low on water. Run low on food. Start to think we’re not gonna make it. That’s when I met Harriet.”
“Harriet?” Eddie said.
“The bird who runs the place I’m taking you. The leader of the community. She’s alright when you get to know her. Bit feisty at first. Bit cold. But hey. If you’re gonna run a place, you’ve gotta be a bit feisty, right?”
Eddie nodded. Truth be told, the thought of another feisty woman in his life was kind of exciting. Zelda. And Kelly...
He tried not to cry just thinking of Kelly.
Shit.
Fatso fell in love.
Crazy, crazy bastard.
“So we’ve been there ever since,” Bill said. “Slowly growing in numbers over time. Got a good mix of people. A good mix of skills. Good match. But there’s one deal of this place.”
“A catch?” Tim said. “Might’ve known.”
“Not a catch. But you’ve gotta be able to offer something.”
“Offer something?” Eddie said.
“Like, a skill. It can be anything. As long as it’s useful. As long as it can be easily implemented. And as long as it’s something that’ll help people in some way. Help the community. Anything come to mind?”
Tim rubbed his hands through his hair. “I’m good at building stuff. Construction. Always have been.”
“Perfect. That’ll do just fine.”
Zelda didn’t say anything. Eddie guessed she didn’t have to. All her skills were already clear for everyone to see. She was a mean-ass bitch, and that was going to stand her in perfect stead.
But then Bill looked at Eddie, and he felt the spotlight turn on him. Felt himself blush.
“How about you, big guy?”
Eddie opened his mouth. He didn’t know what to say, truly. What was he good at? What was his skillset?
“I... um. I mean, I was good at video games. And great at eating, too.”
Tim snorted. Rolled his eyes.
That uselessness.
That sense of uselessness he’d feared he had all his life, coming back to haunt him once again.
He wanted to suppress his thoughts. His feelings. He wanted to bury them. Hide them.
But in the end, he found something opening up within himself.
He found a voice.
“I’m good at listening to people,” Eddie said.
Zelda frowned. Bill looked a little bemused, too.
“Listening to people?” Bill said.
Eddie scratched his arms. “Like, being there for people. Listening to their problems. Their worries. I’m good at... I’m a good listener. Maybe that’ll come in handy.”
A silence followed. A tension. An uncertainty, where Eddie felt like a total idiot, a total numpty, a total—
“Like a counselor kind of thing?” Bill asked.
Eddie looked at him. Nodded. “Yeah. That... that sort of thing.”
And then Bill did the kindest damned thing anyone had ever done.
He smiled. “Sounds perfect. We could do with someone exactly like you.”
Eddie smiled. A warmth inside. “Thanks,” he said. “Well I guess we...”
He saw them and froze.
Zelda saw them too. Cause she raised her shotgun. Pointed it at them.
But Eddie didn’t feel any tension.
He didn’t feel any fear.
“Wait,” he said. “Don’t... don’t shoot.”
Because when he saw them, he knew who they were.
Ex
actly who they were.
He staggered through the trees, closer towards them.
Not believing.
Because it couldn’t be true.
It was too good to be true.
“Noah?” he said.
Chapter Thirty
“Noah?”
Noah heard the voice, and he thought he was imagining things.
He pinned that rifle to Paul’s head as he lay there on the ground. He could feel Kelly’s hand on his arm. All of it had drifted into the background for a moment. All of it had descended into irrelevance as his anger and his pain took over.
But now, all of that disappeared.
He looked up.
Half expected to see nothing. Half expected it to be nothing more than a voice in his head. His subconscious reaching the fuck out at a moment of need.
But when he looked up, he saw him.
There were a few of them.
A man with a bald head. A cheesy smile.
A woman who looked tough as nails holding a shotgun. Real sour look to her face.
And then, with a dog by his side—a dog he recognised all too well...
“Eddie?” he said.
Eddie looked slimmer than he remembered. Actually looked pretty hench with a little weight loss. Healthy in his face.
He stood there. Stared at Noah.
Then at Kelly.
Then back at Noah again.
“Noah?”
Noah didn’t even think about Paul.
He didn’t think about anything.
He just dropped that rifle and raced towards his best friend.
He landed in his arms. Held him tight. All he could say was his name, again and again, as he cried and Eddie cried, and as Barney jumped up and licked him, and as he lost himself in this moment, a moment he didn’t think would happen, a moment he never thought he’d see, a moment he still struggled to believe was actually real.
He pulled away from Eddie. Saw him grinning at him with that big stupid grin, that grin that always cheered him up even if he didn’t want to admit it.
“I thought you were...” Noah started.
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Yeah. Me too, buddy. Me too.”
“Mate, you look great. You’ve lost a bit.”
“Thanks,” Eddie said. “You’ve lost a bit too. You look like utter shit.”
“I know, right?”
He looked around at the people with Eddie, then. This strange bunch of ragtag survivors, whoever they were.
And then he saw Eddie looking at someone.
Kelly.
Eddie walked over to her.
Kelly to him.
They stood opposite one another. In a weird kind of stasis. Not saying anything. Just standing there. Looking incredibly awkward.
“You survived, then?” Kelly asked, not quite looking Eddie in the eye.
“Just about. Figure I’m good for something, huh?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Kelly said.
And then she looked at him.
Smirked.
About as affectionate as Kelly was ever going to get.
They walked back over to Paul, who looked pretty damned bemused about all of this. Stood there in disbelief.
“So, I um, I should probably introduce you,” Eddie said. “This here’s Tim. He’s a bit of a dick at first, but he’s alright when you get to know him.”
The buff guy nodded. Looked a little pale. A little shell-shocked.
“This is Zelda.”
Kelly snorted. “Zelda? Seriously?”
Zelda glared at Kelly. “Seriously. Got a problem with that, Barbie?”
Kelly shook her head. Looked a little amused about it all.
“And this here,” Eddie said. “This is Bill.”
Bill walked over to Noah. Held out a hand.
“Pleasure to meet you, chap.”
Noah took his hand. Shook it.
“Bill here, he’s... he knows a place. A community. A place we can start again. A place where people work together. We can go there, as long as we can offer something. And we can. All of us can. We were gonna go to Lancaster, but—”
“Lancaster? We were heading there too.”
Eddie smiled. “Looks like we’ll be taking a detour for now. What do you say?”
Paul shook his head. Looked royally pissed he was the only one who wasn’t experiencing any happiness right now.
They stood together. This group. A group Noah could barely believe he was in. And as much as he found it difficult, as much as he found it hard to trust, he heard Eddie’s words and looked at this Bill guy, and he felt it.
He knew what he had to do.
He knew where they had to go.
“We go to this community,” Noah said. “We find ourselves a new home. And we start again.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Matt Parker didn’t know shit about biology or science or any of that crap.
But he knew about money. And he knew about promises. He knew when a man meant what he said. He had a good radar about him. Kind of like a bullshit detector, except only where money and jobs were concerned.
So when he’d been approached and offered the job as a guard at an unnamed facility for an unnamed company four years ago, naturally his bullshit detector flashed like mad.
He walked along the empty street, rifle in hand. He remembered the man arriving at his workplace. He was working for G4S at the time, covering some of the roughest nightclubs and dodgiest events in town. He’d built up something of a reputation for being the meanest guard in Newcastle. Didn’t take shit from nobody. Word spread. If you wanted someone to guard your venue, it was Matt.
And when word like that spread, different kinds of folk came to you, too. Folks who wanted guarding. Rich blokes. Blokes who wanted people beating up. Taking out.
And Matt Parker just cracked on. Made sure the offer was good. Made sure the money was good. And made sure the source seemed legit.
He didn’t have time to get caught up in bullshit morals or ethics or whatever.
There were no morals or ethics in the world.
If he got paid, he got paid.
On to the next job.
He walked further along this empty road. He still couldn’t believe how much the world had gone to shit. He saw an old nightclub, shutters down. Smashed beer bottles still lining the road in front of it. The rope rail lying on its side. A few balloons in bright colours, still sitting there, like the club was just gonna re-open any time.
He wasn’t totally alone. Bert and Cara were by his side, rifles in their hands, too. He didn’t speak with them. Wasn’t one to make friends on the job. Friends just made you weak at the end of the day. If you wanted friends, you could go on Meetup.com or one of those other bullshit websites.
Work like Matt’s wasn’t the place to buddy up and share sweet stories about the past.
Good thing was, Bert and Cara totally got that too.
They were cut from the same cloth as him.
Which meant they were perfect guards for the lab.
He thought back to the first day he’d been taken to the lab. This old prison complex, derelict, abandoned long ago. Unsuspecting. A few kids hung around outside. Nothing major. If they started snooping too deeply, then sure, maybe they might have to be told.
And if they kept snooping, well. Maybe they’d just happen to disappear.
But the press wouldn’t find out.
The parents’ anguished cries would be swallowed. Even by social media.
Because the work at the labs was that important.
That’s all Matt knew.
He remembered the first time he’d seen the guys in the full quarantine gear. Wheeling someone in there. He knew he wasn’t supposed to see it. But he’d had a feeling some kind of experimentation was going on there for a while. Something medical. Testing.
And truth be told, he felt iffy about it. Real damned iffy.
But the money was good. Kept on rolling in.
He couldn’t complain.
Just went to work. Day shifts. Night shifts. Until eventually they trusted him enough to provide him with accommodation there. He’d impressed ’em. Scared off a few kids. Even taken out a journalist who wouldn’t stop snooping with minimal mess.
Before he knew it, protecting this lab became Matt Parker’s life.
When shit hit the fan just over a month ago, Matt knew right away the lab was involved somehow. The number of people rushing here started to increase. The noise inside propelled. People started arriving in numbers. People for testing.
And they started letting him in there, too.
He saw all kinds of awful shit. All kinds of horror. All kinds of terror. Enough that for a few days, he thought about just turning around and leaving that place. Too dark for him. Way too dark for him.
And there was another problem, too. Money. It lost its purpose. Lost its meaning.
But then they did something else at that place.
They provided shelter. Security like he wouldn’t get anywhere else.
And they promised him that when it all settled down, he’d be paid like he hadn’t been paid in his whole damned life.
So Matt found himself taking them at their word.
They’d keep providing for him.
They’d keep protecting him. Giving him a home.
And when all this settled, he would be paid.
Or there’d be trouble.
He reached the end of the road, the top of the hill, and he stopped.
He saw them in the distance. Not so clearly, at first. Had to take out his binoculars, just to be certain.
But when his eyes landed on them, he took a deep breath, and he smiled.
They were the people he was after.
They were the people he’d been tasked with retrieving.
And he was getting them back to Dr Jenkinson.
No damned matter what it took.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Noah walked with his new extended group and still couldn’t believe this was actually happening at all.
It was late afternoon now. The sun was getting low. The sun on his skin still felt like a treat. Even the cool breeze felt good. Everything was a treat compared to the darkness and griminess inside that cell.