by Stevens, GJ
The children were the worst, my imagination fixing panic on their features; setting their hands grasping for parents, instead of their expressions devoid of any reaction. I knew they didn’t take notice even as they hit the metal, even as what life remained expired. If you could call it life.
I took a great gasp, imagining nieces and nephews I’d barely spoken with in the past few years, their perfectly formed features showing no sign of affliction, their veins buried deep and out of sight, not raised to the surface, black and bulging despite what my eyes were telling me.
A hand gripped my left. Alex to my right shot a look as I gasped for air, hoping it was my imagination alone which felt our momentum slowing with each hit.
We were slowing. I looked to Alex, then to Jordain to confirm. Neither of them were able to hide the fact from their features as we each tried to look on and beyond the sea of creatures which seemed unending.
“What’s your name?” I shouted out above the din of each impact. The complaint of metal. Of plastic. The fabric of the van seeming so fragile.
I didn’t look as he kept quiet, just repeated. “What’s your name, your first name? It can’t end this way without knowing who you are?”
When he still didn’t reply, I twisted for a look to see his expression narrowed, eyebrows heavy as he caught my glance.
“Don’t you know your name?” I said, nervous laughter spilling up from my throat.
Alex gave a flurry of air from her lungs and I turned to see her lips set in a smile as she shot me a look. But the smile soon dropped as she stared back through the windscreen.
I turned to see Jordain’s eyebrows even further down his face, his weathered skin lined across his forehead.
“Liam,” he replied, his white teeth on show as a smile soon parted his lips.
Each of us flinched back to the windscreen, rocking against our seats as a dark shape disappeared at the top of the glass to leave behind a great crack radiating where it had hit.
I renewed my grip on Liam’s hand, wishing I could hold Alex’s in the other, but the tension alone caused pain to pulse up and along my right arm. With the last hit, the van seemed to have slowed more than ever.
There had been hope before. We’d known the crowd of undead couldn’t have gone on long enough for us to slow to a stop, but now with the path unending it felt as if we were only moments away from the worst situation.
Just as my mood sank lower than I thought I could recover from, I saw light, saw spaces between the bodies and their grasping hands. Air pulled into my lungs and I raised myself to squint through the sheen of smeared blood.
I was right; the crowd was thinning. I could see the darkness of the road between and we had more than enough speed to carry us through, to knock the bodies to the side. To roll over those who wouldn’t get out of the way.
I gripped Liam’s hand tight, pulsing my fingers and nodding towards the windscreen in a hope he’d seen the same and would not take the way out his colleague had. Yet, at least.
I turned to Alex. Her face dropped as I caught her view and flinched back to the screen, but nothing had changed.
Our view was still clearing; we were coming out of the danger.
Then I felt it. Felt the rumble of the engine, the hiccup of our movement despite no impact from outside; despite having cleared the last creature Alex just couldn’t avoid.
The engine coughed a second time and I twisted around to Liam, letting go of his grip, hoping someone would say something as the engine stuttered again.
Blood drained from my head as on the fourth pause it didn't recover and we slowed, rolling in the silence.
102
It didn’t matter which way she turned the wheel or how many times the key clicked in the ignition, the engine wouldn’t pay attention to Alex’s command. We soon travelled too slow to outrun anything nimbler than a tortoise who’d just woken from the winter.
Heavy breath filled the cab as those we’d barged our way through gathered back around. Their hands slapped, fingers clawed, scratching against our thin metal skin. A rising pressure gripped my empty stomach and a dread expanded deep down inside as the windscreen filled with faces, jaws slack, bloodied teeth bared and broken.
For the first time since we’d stopped, I glanced to Alex and her stern expression toward the gathering crowd. I knew she wasn’t really looking. I knew she had something else on her mind.
I turned to Jordain and the blood drained from my face as I watched his hands tracing the outline of the pistol he’d placed on his lap.
“No,” I said and reached over to push his fingers from the gun, then turned to lean across Alex and peer at the dashboard with the lights of all colours flooding the view.
The fuel gauge hovered high above empty. It could only have been damage to the front, the radiator maybe, which had been too much. Still the question slipped from my mouth.
“What’s wrong with it?”
Alex shook her head, looking down to the rainbow of colours staring back, none of which said anything other than we needed to find another ride.
“I won’t know anything until I can have a look,” she said. I could barely hear her voice over the groans from outside and that perpetual stink.
To my surprise, she stood and headed into the back. I didn’t need to follow to know she was checking the rear doors were locked. I looked to Jordain, watching the raise of his brow. My breath eased when I saw the gun no longer on his lap.
When Alex didn’t return to her seat, I felt a shot of energy surging from inside, the van rocking as I twisted and stood, but saw her sitting on the floor with her back to the white shelves trying to make herself comfortable.
“How long do you think it will take them before they move on?” I said, cringing each time I picked out a scrape of nails, the echo surrounding us. She lifted her head out of her hands, stopping her search when she’d found me on the floor opposite her.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice lowering as she spoke. She stared back and held a question she seemed reluctant to ask. Light disappeared in the rear as Jordain stood between the seats in the cab.
“I can’t watch those things,” he said, nodding as Alex gave a weak reply and I repeated the gesture.
He sat on the floor, leaning back to a camera case at the front of the van and closed his eyes while mine searched, my body rolling with the gentle shake from side to side as the suspension absorbed the slap of hands and bump of the crowd.
Were there more of them than before?
My hand reached for my stomach as a cramp held my insides to ransom. I hadn’t eaten since the night before and the morsel hadn’t been enough to hold back the pain. I kept telling myself over and over the same would be true if Toni, her name sticking in my thoughts, had done nothing to me. Anyway, I was cured. Right?
Jordain snored, the noise light and barely there, but from his posture and the slow rise and fall of his chest, it was obvious he was already asleep. My previous experience with the military told me this wasn’t an unusual talent.
Rest when you can because you don’t know when you’ll next get the chance.
Was he right to feel safe with me trapped inside?
Soon, like rain battering the canvas of a tent, the scratch and scrape formed a pattern and although my fear didn’t subside, my breath slowed as I concentrated on Jordain’s rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and the slow, gentle pace of his breath I imagined over the din as my eyelids grew heavy.
***
I woke to silence, fearing the darkness was a sign of the end. But as my eyes adjusted, light seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, I saw both where they were when I’d closed my eyes.
Only then did I realise the scratch and scrape no longer surrounded, but I daren’t move, instead sat listening for any clue from beyond the metal. All I could hear was the pair’s breathing so clear in my ears.
With each passing moment when action didn't appear, no conversation striking throu
gh the quiet, the pair still in their peaceful slumber, I felt the walls surround me and air getting thicker. I felt the pressure in my gut tighten, pain radiating outward and knew it was my body’s way of telling me it needed sustaining. But did it have to make me hallucinate?
First came the smell.
Steak fresh from the packet. An odour I’d never taken to and always held my nose until it sizzled in the pan, but now I craved to slide back the plastic and take a deep pull.
The thought caught me off guard, but as soon as I backed away from the image I felt a fist gripping tighter to my stomach, twisting. Licking my lips without command, the smell of a freshly slaughtered lamb came to mind and the pain soon relented.
I stood, hoping to ease the discomfort and watched as Alex stirred, her movement like a bass drum breaking the silence. I stopped my footsteps until she settled, then tread light with every new step, swallowing down the clawing saliva.
With my hand at my chest I looked out past the windscreen. In the darkness lit only by the bright moon, I could see the crowd had dispersed, but I didn’t care why. I didn’t leap with joy and wake the pair. The creatures still ambled with no aim, but their number was so much less and they no longer cared for the van. It would be a hollow victory if anyone made a sound.
I tapped Jordain on the shoulder and a rush of energy rose through my body, the pain pulling my features down. His eyes lit up, blinking fast to clear the sleep and stood, twitching his head as if trying to figure out my position. The pain deep within me relented with his scent.
In a sleep-waking daze he followed the sound of my steps as I trod lightly toward the rear of the van, his steps in time with mine, mouth widening, pace quickening as I reached for the door handle.
He wasn’t quick enough to stop me before light and cold air flooded in.
Before I stepped to the tarmac and left the door wide.
103
Cold air nipped at my skin, but I didn’t turn my course or flinch as the road sucked away the heat from my feet, despite my trainers still strapped there.
The moonlight stung behind my eyes, but I didn’t back up to the darkness of the van. There was only one thing on my mind and nothing would stay my actions.
Moving to the right and out of the view of the doorway, something brushed against my shoulder and I turned, but without alarm, to see a tall man dressed in a suit, half his face hanging below his chin the only sign of what he’d become.
I didn’t take a deep breath. I didn’t scream and blood continued to pump at the same pace through my veins as he bounced off to his new course without noting what had sent him in that direction. I left him to walk away as Jordain’s boot landed to the tarmac.
The turn of my head was much slower than theirs. Much slower than those who’d been ambling along, waiting for the next meal to come. The creatures had no care for me; I was invisible to them, but the same could not be said for Jordain.
I heard my name on the breeze. I smelt the sweet scent unlatching my stomach, but I didn’t rush back towards Jordain, who was still only a few paces away at the open doors of the van. I didn’t speed to him, despite being shoved to the side by an eager old man with sagging, wrinkled skin who’d found new vigour in the afterlife.
I didn’t see the soldier as Jordain, the man with bright and wide blue eyes with heavy lids, despite the hold of his expression to mine as he tried to figure out if he’d woken or if this was all a dream. Soon his concentration pulled elsewhere, with his hands grasping to pull the pistol and his only chance of survival, from the holster.
Stepping forward, I didn’t waste the time on an apology. In this moment there was nothing I felt sorry for. My hands were busy pushing the door closed as the first of the mouths took hold of his flesh.
I didn’t waste time watching his reaction, watching his hands spasm to give up on the weapon, then balling to fists and striking out at the growing crowd. I no longer thought of him as Jordain as I gave in and let the last of myself be overtaken and took my place, falling to my knees as he did. I crouched to the ground, my face almost touching the tarmac as I filled like a baby sucking on a teat.
Full.
Senses dulled.
His remains on the road could have been anyone and with my last effort I rolled under the van, my stomach griping with pleasure as it gurgled, excited at the contents.
Coming to a rest in the centre I felt the van’s warmth all gone, but I had no care for the cold. I could barely sense anything but the fullness of my belly.
Water rolled to my ears as I tried to remember what he’d looked like before.
I wouldn’t let myself linger, pulling away repeatedly as the taste filled my senses and energy radiated up from my core as I turned to my side to dream of those women paying the price for what I had now become.
104
I woke feeling as if the frozen ground had drawn every degree of warmth from my body. I woke with a pressure wave of sound radiating through my brain.
Pain traced my eyelids as they opened, just like when I’d cried the entire night after coming home from a week of bliss with the woman I could no longer bear to think of.
I’d woken. I could still process information. But why?
I wasn’t cured, my actions last night were proof enough, but I was alive and felt myself again, with no hunger like I’d felt that evening.
I thought of Alex in the van above and a sudden panic rippled through me. What if I couldn’t control myself and she was next?
After a moment the panic passed and my breathing eased when I didn’t feel the hunger surging; no urgency to race to her so I could feed.
A bright new day had started, the signs obvious in the fresh chilled air. I peered around between the tarmac and the dark underside of the van, twisting my head and body together to get a full view, despite the tyres and a thin spear of something white hanging from the engine. Turning to the back end I saw a collection of bones and ragged fatigues drenched a dark shade.
I hadn’t needed the reminder. The moments were still as fresh as if they’d just happened and I turned away, feeling a rising nausea from my stomach.
My right hand went to my mouth but I pulled it away at the sight of the dried blood caked into the lines of my skin.
Feet wandered across the view, taking my attention from my disgust.
Some wore shoes, some with just their dirty brown skin padding on the ground as they scattered across the view and I remembered in the first few moments last night how I’d been ignored. The creatures had passed me by, taking no interest. Was that because I was one of them now? I shuddered at the thought.
A heavy noise still lumbered in the air. The pounding, rapid battery of pressure pulled me away from my thoughts.
“A helicopter,” came a voice. After a moment I realised it was mine and gratefully took it as another sign I hadn’t turned into one of those deplorable creatures.
A surge of optimism grew despite the view. Maybe I wasn’t going to be like them after all. I would be different.
That was it. It must have been what she’d been trying to do all along. It had been Toni’s plan all this time.
I was a host. This thing was not meant to overcome me, it was meant to live alongside me. In Toni’s plans she couldn’t have meant for me to need to eat human flesh. She must have engineered a way that I could live like a human.
The strength, the tuned senses. The hunger and drive.
She’d told me when she’d first explained that she admired the organism. Only now did I realise how much. She knew we had drifted apart and what better way to keep us together? What better way to keep me at her side? Had Toni thought she’d given me a gift that she couldn’t tell me about?
Perhaps there was a way to get through this. Perhaps there was a way I could live with this thing inside. Perhaps there was a way I could do this whilst never having to kill again. I was sure Toni would have the answers.
I was sure she would be in that helicopter and this didn’t change a
nything. I still had a job to do. I still had people to tell so they could be saved, but first I had to do something else. I had to see if there truly was any part of me still human.
Guilt welled again at the sight of the pile of bones. Although it had not been my choice, I should have seen this coming. I did see this coming, but they should be the ones to bear the pain. The regret had to be theirs, not mine.
I turned from the partial skeleton with my head flitting to the sound of the helicopter moving across the sky, but instead my gaze fixed on the long, thin shard stuck out from below the engine.
Crawling along the road on my elbows to the rhythm of the battered air, soon my concentration caught the white bone stripped of flesh, only sinew remaining to hang like thick white hair.
I took hold with my right hand, feeling a wave of repulsion as I noticed the dried blood streaked across my fingers and the jagged nails at the end. It was only then I realised I felt no pain in my hand. My finger and hand had returned to its normal definition. I could grip without being contorted with feeling.
With my smile came the pull of skin across my face, but I didn’t need a mirror to know what had dried and soaked into my pores.
With the bone rattling to the road as it dropped, I rolled from under the van, brimming with energy as I stood.
I felt no pain, no aches from last night’s effort, the cold air so refreshing, so invigorating as I pulled it deep into my lungs.
My gaze caught on the helicopter, now a dot in the distance as it lowered, the sound shrinking as it fell behind the far away buildings. I smiled. Dried flakes fell as blood cracked on my skin. Pleasure rose from my chest as I knew I hadn’t lost my cause.
They were still mine for the taking. They still had to pay, Jordain just another victim of the crime I would make them account for.