by Wood, Rick
“What’s your name anyway, kid?”
“My name is Stacey Simons.”
“Stacey Simons?” he repeated. It sounded like a kid’s television presenter. Or a clown. Or a comedian. Why would parents name a kid that? It was bizarre.
This whole thing was bizarre.
And Gus was sure that the ten-fifteen-minute window he’d allowed himself was running out.
“Eh, kid,” Gus prompted, bringing them both to a stop. He tried to take his hand back, but she’d gripped onto him pretty strongly and he struggled to loosen himself. “Look, I got things I need to do. I can’t be traipsing all around the woods. We’re going to get lost.”
“Okay.”
“Can I have my hand back?”
“Okay.”
Feeling relief, he took his hand back and stared down at it. It had gone red, such was the ferocity of her grip, and it was beginning to throb. How had such a little girl managed to cause him to have such a limp hand?
How was she so strong?
Before he could acknowledge what was happening, the girl ripped the knife out of his belt and swung it into the scar tissue on his calf, right beside where his bullet was lodged.
He collapsed to his knees, wailing in agony, hearing his scream reverberate back to him multiple times. Tears shredded his eyes as he battled with the torture in his right leg.
He went for his gun, but it was gone. He went for the knife beside his shin, but it had gone.
She’d removed them. She must have. She’d taken them, as she had led him further into the woods, she’d somehow done it without him noticing… but how?
“What have you done?” he asked, whimpering in anguish, grabbing hold of his leg. The pain was searing up and down his shin and his thigh, spreading like fire through paper. His mind was filled with clouds. He could not form a single coherent thought, such was the pain shooting through him.
“Wow, Stacey, you have quite the catch!” came a chirpy, middle-aged man’s voice.
Gus twisted his neck upwards to take in the sight of the emerging man. He was the perfect image of a suburban middle-class father. His hair neatly parted to one side, with a woolly jumper over open collar and light-cream trousers. Beside him was a woman with equally distinguishable taste in fashion. She peered her blue eyes down at him, flicking her long, neatly groomed blond locks over her shoulder and crossing her arms over her expensive floral dress.
Battling against the pain and torment of his manically disjointed thoughts, he went to throw a fist, but was halted by the sight of his own gun pointed directly at his face.
“Ah, ah, ah!” dismissed the man. “We don’t engage in such unpleasantries in front of the ladies now, do we?”
“What the fuck are you people?”
“Oh, do mind me, where are my manners? Stacey, my daughter, you have met. My name is James, and this is my wife, Trisha.” He squeezed the hand of his wife and they gave each other a sneaky smile, like they were watching their child score a goal at their Sunday football game. “You have done so well, darling. So, so well.”
Gus glared at the girl. Stacey. Supposedly innocent.
“You bitch.”
James stomped his brown suede shoe down upon Gus’s bleeding calf, and Gus wailed in pain once more, scrunching his eyes as he lifted his head up to the heavens.
Must think clearly. Must think objectively. Must focus.
“One doesn’t address a lady in such a manner in civilised company. Sweetie, I do apologise for you having to hear such profanities.”
“It is really okay, Daddy. I think he’s quite a filthy man. His hand was all rough and coarse.”
“Well, you did an exquisite job of subtly relieving him of his weapons. We were behind you the whole time, just picking them up like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs!”
Stacey blushed and smiled proudly, lifting her shoulders up to disguise her pleasure at the perfect fatherly compliment.
“So what? You just a bunch of sickos? Out here to torture people for fun?”
“No, no, my friend. We are out here for survival. For hunger.”
“For hunger?”
“It tastes like pork, but better.”
“What are you on about?”
James bent down, a smile widening across his face.
“Did you now the average human adult provides thirty kilograms of food?” James looked up and down Gus’s body as if he was mentally undressing a beautiful woman. A dollop of drool appeared from the corner of his mouth. “And with you, I imagine we’ll be packing even more meat than that.”
Gus felt a lump of sick come to his mouth. The pain was constant, an ongoing discomfort seizing at the base of his leg – but the dawn of realisation as he listened to this man’s words was even more painful.
“You what?”
“My new friend, you are going to last us for weeks.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Donny peered over the horizon, watching the amber glow of the setting sun.
Gus had been very precise in how to recognise what time it was according to the level of the sun in the sky – specifically, how to tell when it had been an hour. In all honesty, Donny had understood very little, but didn’t want to let that on; so he’d nodded along, all the time keeping his plastic wrist watch hidden behind his back.
An hour. Gus had been very strict. Very adamant.
“An hour, you ’ear me? Not an hour ten minutes, not an hour five, not even an hour and thirty friggin’ seconds – an hour.”
Gus’s words, however inaccurately recollected, rung around Donny’s mind.
It had been more than an hour.
This only confirmed one of two things.
Either Gus was dead, or…
No, that was the only thing it confirmed. Gus was dead.
Though Donny found it difficult to imagine how someone of Gus’s capabilities would end up dead on a trip to the lake to wash – something he was incredibly grateful for, as Gus’s odour was getting more poignant than Sadie’s, and Gus’s hostile temperament led Donny to believe that he would not welcome some delicately phrased astute observations that hinted at his need to wash.
Donny recollected stopping at this service station a few times as a child. It didn’t look the same. The busy car park and thriving shops were no more; replaced by a mass of burnt-out cars smashed together and abandoned, looted buildings. Even so, he was still filled with a sense of nostalgia as he reminisced over fond memories of running to the nearby lake as a child.
Donny turned to the car. Sadie laid across the backseat. Her eyes were fastened shut, her thumb held peacefully in her mouth, and her breathing was deep enough to indicate she was in a sound slumber.
Donny did not want to disturb her. Partly as she had been agitated for last part of the journey and she needed rest – but mostly as he was scared of what she would do to him if he woke her up. He once accidentally woke his ex-girlfriend’s cat up, and she had pounced upon him and gnawed on his arm, leaving teeth imprints for weeks. Sadie, being far thriftier, could well break his arm off.
No, he would go to the lake, see what was going on. It was five minutes away. He would be in either running distance of Sadie in the car, or Gus at the lake. He’d be fine.
But he’d take a gun.
Seemed like a good idea.
Not that he had balls enough to use it: that had already been highlighted. He couldn’t even shoot a zombie.
He dropped his eyes to the floor and shook his head. He felt pathetic. All that time shooting zombies on a video game, but when it came to the real thing, it felt far different pointing a barrel at a real head, alive or undead.
He sighed. Should he take a gun?
Screw it.
He opened the boot and sifted through the sports bag containing all the weapons. He found a small handgun. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt most right that he took this, instead of any of the bigger or more powerful-looking guns.
Maybe if it felt like less of a gun,
he’d be better at shooting it.
He lifted the gun up and aimed at a distant road sign. It was heavy. Like, really heavy. How could something so small be so heavy?
Was it even loaded?
He rotated the gun, looking to see if it was loaded, until he realised he had no idea whatsoever what he was looking for. Was it a clip in the handle – a magazine, is that what they call it? Or was it a six shooter, like in a western.
No idea.
Just point, pull the trigger, and hope for the best.
Dropping the gun to his side, he scanned the area around him,and edged toward the opening to the woods.
Suddenly, he felt afraid.
He hadn’t felt it standing beside the car. If anything came at him, he’d see it, and he’d be able to get in the car and alert Sadie in time for her to stop it for him.
But now he was on his own.
He paused.
Should he turn back?
He looked over his shoulder at the car. Should he really leave Sadie alone? Would she be safe?
He scoffed.
Who was he kidding?
How would she be any safer with him there?
Donny checked his watch. Another ten minutes had passed, and Gus still hadn’t appeared.
Constantly scanning the surroundings, he approached the woods, staying low, like he’d hit the crouch button on the computer game and couldn’t figure out how to undo it.
But this was no computer game.
As he was about to find out.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“You tellin’ me, you lot are a bunch of cannibals?”
James scrunched his face up in disgust, turning away and mimicking a wretch.
“Oh, my,” he said, like someone had just been incredibly rude at a dinner party. “You wash your potty mouth out, mister!”
James kept the gun focussed on Gus’s head.
Gus looked over his shoulder at Stacey. As he was on his knees, she was about eye level with him, but her eyes gave no recognition of the abnormality of the situation. She smiled back at him and turned her eyes dotingly toward her parents. She was so prim, so proper, this whole thing just felt like a bizarre dream.
“So what, you gonna shoot me then chop me up?”
“I don’t know, being honest with you. Trisha, how should we do this one? I mean, that last fellow we shot in the head, and that ruined a whole load of the meat. Stacey always loves the brains.”
“I do.” Stacey nodded, a sweet, beaming smile delighting her face with virtuous joy. “I do, I do really love the brains.”
“Shit, the world ends and it brings out all the fuckin’ crazies.”
James lifted his hand back and smacked the end of his gun into the base of Gus’s skull. Gus fell onto his front, squinting in pain, the world spinning dizzily around him.
“Once again, I am going to remind you to mind your filthy tongue in front of my daughter!” James demanded, showing the first sign of genuine hostility he’d shown since he’d begun this incessantly sadistic tirade.
“Right then,” Gus coughed, pushing himself to his knees. “You gonna eat me, get on with it. I ain’t got all day.”
“I say the knife,” Trisha decided, withdrawing Gus’s large hunter’s knife with the curved blade. “The bottom of the spine. That way he’ll paralyse but stay alive. He won’t be able to move and wriggle away, which means we can keep him alive longer, and always have fresh meat.”
James’s jaw dropped open in astonishment. “What a gosh-darn wonderful idea! My wife,” he directed at Gus, “can you believe it? I mean, she spends so much time looking pretty I forget there’s one smart head on those shoulders too!”
I must be on acid.
Gus searched for something near him, something he could use as a weapon, a way to fight. A large rock, maybe, or a loose blade on one of them he could grab. Maybe he could take the daughter hostage. Threaten her until they submitted.
Then again, the daughter may be the most sadistic of the lot.
No. He was surrounded. There were three of them. The fight was falling out of him.
But what about his daughter?
No. That’s not right.
What about Eugene’s daughter?
Laney.
There I go again. It’s not my daughter. My daughter is…
A bush moved in the distance. Something was there.
Someone was there.
Gus kept his head lowered, not wanting to draw attention to it, but kept his eyes up.
The flicker of messy hair. A scruffy collar.
Donny.
It was Donny.
“Come on,” Gus whispered, urging Donny to make a move.
Donny, the man who hadn’t even been able to kill a zombie.
He was done for.
“Right,” James decided. “One does have places to be. Let’s get to it.”
James took the blade from his wife’s hands and gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek, whispering something undoubtedly romantic in her ear.
Gus’s hands scrunched up, digging into the earth, grasping tufts of grass.
James moved to the back of Gus, readying his knife hand.
“Don’t move!” came a weak cry, and Donny burst out from behind the bushes, pointing a trembling gun at James.
Fucking idiot.
Gus couldn’t have been more disappointed.
Donny was disguised. Under cover. Unnoticed.
He had a perfect vantage point to take the shot.
Now they were just going to get his gun off him and shoot Donny too. Maybe eat him for dessert, who knows.
“I mean, or I’ll shoot you,” Donny persisted with minimal conviction.
James paused, dropping the knife and lifting his hands up. The one advantage Donny did have was that they did not know how inept he was. For all they knew, he’d be able pinpoint all their heads in three quick successive shots. Until they realised how incapable he actually was, they would likely retain caution.
“Shoot them,” Gus grunted.
Donny edged forward, his gun buckling so hard between his two hands that Gus was amazed the kid didn’t drop it.
“Please, just shoot them,” Gus urged.
The opportunity was growing smaller by the second.
James was already exchanging a glance with his wife and daughter, formulating a subconscious plan. They had been able to gather their thoughts and they were edging away from each other.
Stacey was getting closer to Gus so that the shot wouldn’t be risked in her direction. James was edging further to the left, and Trisha to the right. Gus recognised this as a tactic he’d employ – widening the space between the targets, meaning that if Donny took a shot at one of them, the other would have the opportunity to intervene and wrestle the gun from him.
“I – I – don’t move!”
“Donny, fucking shoot them!”
Donny’s finger poised over the trigger. He pointed it at James. Took aim.
And failed.
Backed down.
Dropped the gun to his side.
Sweat trickled down his cheek. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
He’d bottled it.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Gus’s eyes were fixed on the gun hanging by Donny’s side, gripped in his hand but loosely swinging, like a child with their favourite doll.
He bowed his head, closing his eyes, filling with disappointment.
This was Donny’s opportunity.
The point where Donny could have proven his worth.
Where he could have redeemed his past failures. And all he had to do was kill a family of cannibals about to kill and eat Gus.
James and Trisha exchanged a knowing look, as if they had somehow expected this little boy to let Gus down.
They moved back toward each other, removing the gap they had created, and walked toward Donny.
“It’s okay, my friend,” James told Donny. “Just give me the gun and this will a
ll be fine.”
“Give you the gun?” Donny repeated.
He lifted the gun in his shaking hands.
No, Donny.
Gus willed him to be stronger.
Gus willed him not to relinquish the only chance they had.
“That’s it,” James continued, standing beside his wife, now just yards from Donny. “Just hand it to me.”
“Okay,” Donny confirmed. “I will.”
James held out his hand.
Donny pointed the gun at James’s head and shot him in the face. His skull blew into pieces that scattered over the bushes and trees, and his headless body fell to the floor.
Before Gus could catch his breath, Donny turned to Trisha and shot. She was already running away, meaning his elusive aim was unlikely to hit her, but a bullet did manage to skim her shoulder
“No!” Stacey screamed out. “Mommy! Daddy!”
Stacey looked to Donny with eyes of fake demented terror.
Donny aimed at the girl.
But he couldn’t. Not a child.
“Allow me.” Gus stood, snatched the gun from Donny’s hand, and pointed it at the girl.
“You wouldn’t shoot an innocent little girl. Would you, mister?”
She pulled the best puppy-dog eyes Gus had ever seen.
Gus blew three rounds into her chest, each one shoving her further back until she fell onto the floor.
He aimed at Trisha, but she had already disappeared into the distance.
Gus immediately turned his attention to Donny.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded, not knowing whether to feel aggrieved or relieved.
“They were standing too far apart,” Donny admitted. “I needed them to get closer.”
Gus smirked. For what must be the first time in months, he felt a smile spread from cheek to cheek.
“You are full of surprises. Ain’t you, kid?”
Donny looked to the bodies slumped on the floor.
“Come on,” Gus instructed Donny, “If any infected heard the gunshots, they’d be on their way by now.”
Gus charged through the bushes, pushing them out of the way. He stopped once he realised he was alone.
He edged back to the opening, where Donny still absently stood.