by Stevens, GJ
I pushed my fingers in my ears, the chaos enough to wake the dead.
I tried to concentrate. Tried to fix on the crowd, watching their movements with intrigue.
My eyes went wide as the realisation came. I’d seen this before, but from a different vantage.
My hands raised up as the first of the crowd passed into the group of houses. As the crowd spread, turning this way and that, they moved to those standing by the side of the road. Those watching on weren’t scared, weren’t worried until it was too late. Their screams added to the background.
Only I saw those weren’t people. Only I saw those weren’t rescuers. Only I saw those were the infected.
I grabbed for the Glock, but it wasn’t at my waistband. I scoured the ground, turning to stare across my path, running back towards the house, knowing I must have dropped it inside. I jogged, but fell to my knees, my arms covering my face as the cars on the side of the road exploded one after the other.
63
The heat beat me back. I stood, unsure on my feet with screams and pain radiating, echoing between the houses. I heard the moment the realisation came from the crowd. Panic sparked to life, screams echoing out.
People ran into the dead. When confronted with jaws locking to their fleshy parts some ran to the fires, adding to the orchestra of screams while others ran back to their houses and shut out those who tried to follow, even though hearts still beat in their chests. Some jumped over fences and out of sight. Others stayed put, their feet fixed to the ground in disbelief.
I couldn’t watch. I had to turn away.
Taking a step forward to Alex’s house, the fire beat me back again.
My thoughts flashed to Alex. I twisted around, searching, but she'd gone. I tried again to get through the heat but still the searing temperature forced me away and I bounded back a few steps until I could just bear the energy pouring out.
I heard a familiar call, an angry shout and turned to see someone in the shadows tussling with one of the creatures.
I watched the pair fighting until with a flash of light from a nearby fire I saw the dark shirt. I saw the long fencepost wielded in the defender’s hands, the club swinging left and right. She’d taken down the first and then figure after figure fell, each knocked to the ground.
With pride rising in my chest I saw Alex beating back the onslaught of the dead.
I twisted as many hands gripped at the fence. The fire at my back had died down enough for me to run past the flames, cursing the heat as I scooped up the gun in the hallway and turned back, racing towards the battle.
She’d disappeared again, leaving just a crowd surging forward where she’d been, hands grabbing at those whose brains were miswired, gripped to the spot with fear.
I ran.
A gust of wind almost pushed me over with the stench of the sewers. I looked beyond the front line of the group, high on my toes, but she was nowhere to be seen.
They'd overcome her and I felt disbelief at another life lost before I’d got to know them.
“Jess,” a call came to my left.
“Jess,” it came again as I searched. Only on the second call did I see Alex beckoning me between two houses as she stood beside a stream of people waving them past her. I took one quick glance toward the crowd and watched, wide-eyed, at a middle-aged man, his face grey, hand clutching his chest. He disappeared, overcome by the crowd of hungry faces bearing down as he collapsed to the ground.
I ran.
Alex followed behind me, the last of those who could still walk. By now the screams had died and the lights had gone dim. Torch beams flickered around the night, dispersing across our view. Sirens and car horns still blared away, calling more of the dead ever closer. We had to get away.
We’d made the right choice to run, not to lock ourselves away hoping the cavalry would come around the corner and save the day.
These are the people that had to be told. It was my job to tell those people who could still hear me to prepare for the worst or die. I had to break the news and save as many lives as I could.
Once between the alley, we filtered through the garden of the house on the right and followed the thin crowd down along the grass and over the tall wooden fence laying on the floor. We were out into the fields. Back where we’d started.
Stumbling in the dark, I felt Alex’s strong grip in my hand. She caught my fall as I listened to the sounds diminish behind us with each pace and the smoke thin in the air.
Moonlit figures dotted around the field. Most had stopped and turned back to their village, shining torches across the horizon with sharp pulls of breath following each moment someone caught a fright or saw movement from an unseen part of the field.
Alex stayed at my side, scouring like the others as we slowed. Words in the scattered group built to a hurried conversation and people drew together. Tears fell and rose and fell again as they sought and received comfort, their mouths full of questions.
“What now?” a deep voice said, the loudest of many.
A reply came from somewhere unseen. “Wait for the police,” a woman said, her voice on the edge of tears.
I looked to Alex and could just make out her face in the dull glow until a torch shined right on her. She pushed her hand out to block the beam as she turned away, shaking her head. The beam swapped to another face.
“We get away,” I said, and the beam was on me, but, used to the brightness, I didn’t shy away. “We walk, find somewhere safe. Stay in the fields until it gets light, till we can see where we’re going.”
A murmur ran around the thin crowd. Tears dried and breath slowed.
“We should get back to our houses,” a man’s voice shouted towards the back of the group.
“You need to keep your voice low,” I said, hushing mine. The crowd seemed to murmur in agreement and took a collective step closer to where I stood.
“What are they?” a woman’s voice said close by. Hers the clearest of the many questions pouring in my direction. I paused, not wanting my words to raise their blood.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I know what they look like.”
Noises of agreement ran around us.
“All I know is you need to stay away. You need to keep quiet. You need to find somewhere safe, somewhere with food until you’re rescued.”
Voices of encouragement greeted my sentiment. Names of places came from the crowd. The words were loud at first, then repeated quieter until the crowd broadly agreed on a supermarket a few kilometres away.
“Great,” I said and stopped. “Which way is that?” I added, watching in the moonlight as many hands pointed to our left. “Okay.”
As the crowd moved, following the way pointed, Alex stepped to follow until I put my hand on her forearm and held her back, my finger to my lips as she turned in my direction.
64
In silence she walked in my wake with my hand around her wrist.
I felt her tension, the questions on the tip of her tongue as we headed parallel to the growing amber glow and the cacophony still roaring at our side. With the fade of each short-lived scream, I imagined more people forced out into the open as the fires caught neighbour after neighbour. Under my breath I thanked them for their help drawing away the infected and keeping us safe.
With the amber glow at our backs, Alex twisted from my loosening grip. Before she spoke, I lingered on the halo above the village and the growing plume of dark smoke rising to blot out the stars. To its side I saw distant torchlight flashes, watched beams scanning the horizon and I couldn’t help fear the lights were seeking me out.
“Why didn’t we go with them?” Alex said in a quiet voice.
I turned, meandering away while my eyes adjusted from the lights.
“I told you, I have something to do. I have to get my cameras. I have to tell the world what’s happening here.”
“Shouldn’t we have brought them with us?”
“It’s too dangerous. They’re better off doing what I sai
d.”
“Isn’t it too dangerous for us too?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
I let my pace quicken.
“And I don’t either?” she said, her mouth sounding contorted.
“You can catch up with them if that’s what you want.”
She didn’t reply for a while, her voice quiet again when she spoke.
“You need my help?”
“It’s your choice,” I said in a flat tone.
“You want me along though?”
I paused.
“I doubted myself back there. It’s a lot to come to terms with, but when I saw you with the fence post, I knew.”
“Knew what?” she said, her pace quickening to catch up.
“I knew you’d be okay. Knew you’ve got what it takes.”
“Takes for what?”
“To stay alive. To survive.”
She didn’t reply.
We walked in silence for what must have been ten minutes with still no sign of light on the horizon.
“What’s the plan?” she said, catching up after falling behind.
I paused and thought about the question. “Get the camera van,” I said. “Do you think you can operate a camera?”
“I guess,” she said. “How different can it be to a camcorder these days? What are we going to film?”
I paused again, hoping she was right, hoping that with her electronics skills she might be able to decipher the instructions.
My thoughts turned to all that had happened so far. I thought of all the missed opportunities; each time I should have captured the images. Each time I could have sent them back to London and the rest of the world would have known, would have come to the rescue. I thought of all the lives I’d seen lost. Thought of all the needless death and tried not to imagine the scale, fearing I’d only seen a fraction.
“We film what we see. We won’t need to be picky.”
She paused again.
“Where’s the van?”
I stopped and looked around the horizon, trying to get my bearings.
“The next village over?” I said, the words uncommitted.
She stepped ahead, repeating my turn around the view and pointed to our left, almost in a right-angle direction and started walked.
She spoke as I caught up. “Why the van? Why can’t we just Facebook live film it and then it’s out there for the masses? I bet you’ve got a few hundred thousand followers?”
“Two point three million last time I looked,” I said, not taking any enjoyment from the words. “But I saw how you reacted and you’re here. You’ve seen it for yourself. You thought it was a prank. How would that appear on the internet?” I let the words hang for a moment. “No. This needs to go through my editor. It needs sending out on the main channels. It needs to be on every screen. Then they’ll have to believe. To do that I have to transmit the pictures from the equipment in the van. It has its own satellite transmitter. It has to come from me or it will get intercepted by the firewalls or who knows, maybe the government will get it first.”
Alex didn’t reply straight away, other than to nod, but she spoke when it seemed as if a thought occurred to her from nowhere.
“Why’s this down to you?”
“It’s what I do,” I replied, the words a reflex.
“What I mean is, if this is so bad, why aren’t the special forces down here kicking their asses?”
I thought for a moment and peered up to the sky. I thought of the Home Secretary’s expression as I mentioned the headline before I’d started this journey. I focused on the pinprick stars I often stared at to make sure I remembered how minuscule my part in the universe is.
“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “And that’s what else we’ll do.”
“Huh?”
“We'll find out why the rest of the country is letting this happen.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I replied, my words slow. “But I’ve got a feeling if I stick a gun in my mother-in-law’s face, we’ll know a lot more.”
65
“Mother-in-law?”
“I don’t know why I said that. I didn’t mean mother-in-law. I meant something else. She’s the mother of my…” I stopped, the words confused in my head.
Toni hadn’t been my girlfriend for longer than two weeks at a time and only way back when we didn’t know what happened when we spent long periods together. Long before we ruined the dream.
A fear flashed that I’d already begun to romanticise what we had. Had I already forgotten she’d handed me over to the woman who’d plunged a needle in me, then infected me with a bite? Handed me over to the woman who’d locked me in a cage to see what happened.
I remembered the woman’s words. It was your idea.
I had to find out what she’d meant. I had to find out what it all meant. I had to find out if it was Toni who’d orchestrated what had happened. I had to know; if she had this all planned then why was her face so beaten and bruised? Why was she locked up in that place?
So much didn’t make sense.
Breath caught in my mouth as I rambled inside my head. Images of Toni’s body stumbling back flashed through my mind. Her hand at her stomach so clear in my head. Maybe now I would never know her side of the story. Never know if she was the one who pulled me to her so I could be part of their experiment.
“Are you okay?” Alex said, one hand reaching for my arm, the other in the small of my back as I bent. With her touch I pulled upright, shaking off her grip.
“I tripped, calm down,” I snapped and she pulled away.
She didn’t speak and I was glad for the quiet. I needed space to concentrate on pushing away the thoughts as we walked.
As time went on, my mind went over the same questions and I needed her to talk now. What had Toni’s first look meant when I caught her gaze as she sat in the orange jump-suit? Why did the sniper help us? What was this all about?
I needed Alex’s voice to fill the void left by my feelings pushed down inside. I needed her words as a weight to keep them from rising.
“It’s getting light,” I said, my voice low, not turning to see if she’d been watching the first glow of orange on the horizon.
“Yes.”
“Sorry I was short,” I said. “I’ve got a lot to deal with, you know. It’s no excuse, but…”
She quickened her pace to catch up.
“It’s fine. As long as you don’t try to shoot me again,” she said.
Dread washed over me at the thought of what I’d done, but with surprise I heard the smile in her voice and saw the curl of her lips as I turned. Still too dark to make out the detail, I could see no blame in her features. She didn’t look like she’d retaliate with a verbal attack at any moment.
I looked ahead, revelling in the relief, but could see nothing on the horizon as we climbed. The rising light highlighted the clean line of the hilltop. There was still a long way to go.
“So you want to talk now?” she said; her words seemed genuine enough. I couldn’t sense any accusation.
I nodded.
“Do you feel better now you know I’m not a man?” said with a smile in her voice.
I couldn’t look at her, the embarrassment forcing my mouth closed.
“It’s okay. I get it a lot. I don’t exactly help myself.”
I turned towards her to see her grin and I got the feeling she loved wrong-footing everyone when they first met.
“My parents were set on bringing me up gender neutral. I had transformers and dolls. Now I just can’t bring myself to wear a dress.”
“I’m sorry I just assumed. You don’t have to explain,” I said turning to her as I walked.
She nodded and gave a shallow raise of her eyebrows.
“But you do,” she added, jogging past me and turning to me as she walked backwards. “What’s all this about? What do you know?”
Of course she wanted to talk about the one thing I’d had enough of.
“You said something about what’s going on, the dead reanimating. I’ve seen for myself, but I need to know more. And from the beginning.”
I got it. I would be the same. I was the same.
“It’s patchy, but I’ll do my best,” I said and turned to see her nodding out of the corner of my eye. “From what I can gather, it started in a laboratory near to the village we’re headed to. The scientists were doing work on a virus, trying to find a cure.” I heard Toni’s voice correcting the words in my head. “An antidote or a vaccine. Maybe both.”
She nodded, only moving her eyes from me to check her footfalls as the ground undulated.
“It got out of control. They argued about how to deal with it. The scientists squabbled about the best approach. I got a call, my girl…” I paused on the word. “Toni, was in trouble and I rushed here to see if I could help.”
“Your girlfriend, right?”
I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath.
“It’s complicated,” I said, shaking my head and opening my eyes as the sole of my trainer kicked against a stone. “What they were doing in there…” The words felt heavy in my throat. “They were testing on people. Live people.” I stopped walking and she stayed at my side, her gaze fixed in my direction.
“Their tests created something. Some things,” I said, correcting myself. “These things are like a hybrid, a mutation and they’re so much more powerful than when the disease, the virus, takes over a dead body. They overran the facility. Not even the Army could deal with it.”
“And that’s when you escaped?”
I nodded and walked on.
“Why you?” she said as she followed.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Where did it come from? The virus, I mean,” Alex said.
I paused. Had Toni said something about the Amazon? It was one of many questions I would ask when the gun was in the doctor’s face. I shook my head.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “All I know is you have to damage the brain to kill them.”