Fever (Flu)

by Wayne Simmons

  “Close the blinds,” Martin said to Lize, moving to his own bedroom where he did the same. He came back into the hallway. “We need to be quiet. They’ll move on if they forget we’re here. They always do.”

  “What’s happening?” It was Shaun, coming up the stairs, his voice loud in the enforced silence.

  “Shut him up!” Martin half-whispered to Lize.

  He was on the floor now, beckoning to everyone else to do likewise and lie low. Both hands still clutched the rifle.

  “Shaun, there’s more of them out there,” Lize cried.

  Shaun moved to the window, looking down upon the road at the front of the house.

  Martin looked to Lize, his face incredulous and panicked, “Tell him to get out of sight!”

  Lize left Jamie and went to Shaun, tugging on his arm. “Get down! Daddy says to get down!”

  Shaun shook his wife’s hand away. How dare she treat him like that in front of the boy? How dare she talk down to him, talk to him like he was a—

  He remembered a family day out, when Jamie was very little. They’d gone to the park. Fed the ducks, played on the swings—did all the things a child liked to do in front of his parents and grandpa. Shaun went to buy some ice cream for them all. He’d come out to see Martin talking to Lize.

  “Why did you have to marry that—?” he’d been saying.

  That what? That dummy? That spastic?

  And the worst of it was Lize just accepted it. Let that bastard talk like that about her husband.

  Shaun’s inner pop psychologist wasn’t stretched to guess the reasons why, of course—entering this world by taking the life of her mother was bound to take its toll on a girl. The doctors called it a miracle birth but for Lize, it was more of a curse.

  Maybe that’s why she’d had the affair.

  They still hadn’t talked about it. Yet in the heat of this moment, the image of the photo he found in Lize’s travel bag came back to him. The words scribbled in the card, with the Eiffel Tower on the front, now ingrained within Shaun’s memory:

  Love always...

  Alan

  And then it suddenly clicked as to why Shaun had recognised the dead man walking in that lab footage they’d been playing, over and over again before the TV shut down. It was the man from the picture. The man his wife was having an affair with... he was sure of it!

  Lize went to tug his arm but Shaun shook her off.

  “Alan,” he said to her. “The man you were seeing behind my back. Where did you meet him?”

  Her face creased in disbelief. “What?”

  “Where did you meet him!” He was shouting now. He watched as Jamie leaned in closer to his mum.

  “What does any of that matter now?” Lize protested. “Shaun, please. You’re scaring the child. And you’re shouting! And those things—”

  “Your Alan is one of those things,” Shaun cut in. “He was on that video footage. He attacked the doctor, and they cut his head—”

  “Don’t,” Lize cut in. “Please, Shaun. Not now.”

  “Why not?! What was it about him? Go on, I want to know.”

  Martin rose to his feet, faced Shaun. “Shut up,” he said. “Shut up, or I swear to God I will shut you up.”

  Shaun stared at him. “Have a go then, old man. See how far it gets you.”

  Lize looked at Shaun incredulously. “Why are you doing this?” she asked him. “Why?”

  Why indeed? Shaun mused.

  Was it because this was the end, their swan song, and they needed to talk this thing out? Or maybe he’d just had enough: all that pent up rage due to blow any day. Being locked up with a cunt like Martin for weeks only sped up the process.

  Martin went to grab Shaun, but the younger man pushed him away.

  He went to follow through, but Martin’s gaze moved to the window, his attention suddenly drawn away from Shaun’s angry glare.

  Shaun looked to Lize and Jamie, both of them looking similarly spooked.

  “What is it?” he asked, shaking the older man by the collar. “Tell me!”

  Martin turned, looked him square in the face.

  “I think they’ve broken into the house,” he said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “The kitchen,” Lize said.

  Martin looked to Shaun. There was fear in the other man’s eyes.

  He pulled away from Shaun, went to move, but Shaun grabbed him again.

  Martin looked up.

  “I can help,” Shaun said to him.

  Martin seemed to think on that for a while and then nodded.

  Shaun released him.

  Martin unsheathed the knife from his belt. Checked the blade. Handed it to Shaun.

  He grabbed the gun.

  Both men went to go down the stairs, but Martin hesitated, looked at the gun before setting it against the wall.

  “What are you doing? You’re going to need that!” Shaun said.

  “Empty,” Martin replied, his voice raised.

  They descended the stairs, Shaun letting Martin go first, despite being unarmed.

  They reached the hallway.

  Martin reached for the living room door. Nodded to Shaun then opened it.

  Shaun was first through the door, his knife ready. In the corner he noticed Fred, the dog barking angrily at the dining room door.

  Martin followed him in, the older man’s eyes searching the room.

  He called to Fred, and the dog wagged his tail enthusiastically but continued barking.

  Shaun grabbed Fred by the collar, pulling him back. “Go on,” he said. “Get out of here.” But the dog wasn’t for moving, struggling back towards the door.

  “Leave him,” Martin said.

  The old man’s eyes were drawn to the fireplace, finding a brass poker discarded in the ashes. He grabbed it, weighing it up in his hands. Looked to Shaun, then to the dining room door, and nodded.

  Shaun reached for the door handle, pulling it open.

  He stepped back, looked through the doorway.

  The kitchen was jammed full of the dead. Through the dense crowd and plague of flies filling the air like smoke, Shaun noticed the back door hanging off its hinges.

  “Fuck!” the younger man said.

  He turned the knife in his hands, wondering just what the hell he was going to do with it.

  Fred acted first, leaping into the crowd, snarling. Martin was next.

  As one of the dead struggled to make sense of the vicious dog, the older man grabbed it by the collar, pulling it through the door with one hand and then bringing the poker down across its head with the other.

  It reacted, eyes alert, reaching for Martin, but the old man was quick, turning the poker skilfully then ramming it through the dead thing’s open mouth, pinning it against the dining room wall. He held it there, the creature’s arms flailing, trying to grab hold of its attacker.

  “Do something!” Martin yelled at Shaun.

  Shaun stepped forward, taking the knife and jamming it into the dead man’s left eye. Through gritted teeth, he watched the thing scream as he twisted the blade deeper, blood and flesh spitting out from the wound, Martin still holding the creature firm with the poker. Finally, its hands fell by its side, and Martin released it, allowing the body to fall to the floor.

  Another two were on them immediately, lunging from the kitchen, arms reaching aimlessly.

  Shaun wasn’t ready for them. His knife was on the floor, still buried in the first cadaver’s eye. He grabbed his attacker by the shoulders, fought to keep its snapping jaws from his face.

  Martin stepped back, busting his attacker’s head wide open with his first swing then finishing the job with his second.

  Shaun called out for help, all the while struggling to keep his attacker’s rotten teeth at arm’s length.

  Martin brought the poker down heavy on the thing’s head, splitting it like an overripe melon, blood soaking the younger man as he turned his face away.

  The blood was in his eyes. Shaun cou
ldn’t see. Silence rang as ever in his head.

  His sense of smell was all he had now, the fetid breath of his attacker replaced by the overpowering stench of the whole damn pack.

  Shaun was terrified, heart almost exploding from his chest.

  Both arms shot out, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He staggered about like an old drunk, eyes still smarting, squeezed tight against the contaminating blood. He struggled against the onslaught of flies, swarming around his face, nose and mouth. He tried to catch his breath despite the obnoxious invasion clogging his airways.

  Tears ran down his face, diluting the blood. Shaun opened one eye, just in time to dodge the affections of a rather scantly-clad girl, lipstick and blood spread across her face like jam.

  She reached again for him, baring her teeth, the perfectly aligned veneers chomping down.

  But Martin brought her flirtations to an end, swinging the brass poker down hard on her once pretty head, spilling her brains against the dining room wall.

  The old man grabbed Shaun, shook him.

  “Get it together!” he yelled. “I need you!”

  Shaun nodded.

  He looked back to the kitchen spotting Fred ripping at the throat of a felled cadaver, his tail wagging.

  But still they came, driving once more through the dining room doorway. And still Martin battled, smashing through their mass with his poker, spreading blood and bile and brain alike, steadying himself and then striking again.

  “I’ve no weapon!” Shaun yelled, but that wasn’t enough for a man like Martin.

  “Your fists,” came his reply.

  Shaun clenched his teeth, stepped forward, belting the nearest of the pack, following through with a left hook, sweeping the thing from its feet.

  Martin finished the job, spearing the felled cadaver with the poker.

  The older man was tiring, his hands shaking with exhaustion, sweat lashing off his face. But this was no time to stop. They needed to beat their way through to the back door, secure it. Despite the odds stacked heavily against them.

  Just when Shaun thought all was lost, a hand fell against his shoulder. He looked around, finding Lize. “Get out of the way!” she screamed.

  Both men moved.

  Fred looked up at her voice, spotted the gun then made himself scarce.

  Lize fired, her first blast ripping into the chest of an approaching dead man. Her second shot, equally as cavalier as the first, took the head off the next cadaver, spreading it across his undead mates.

  She looked to her father, smiled.

  “I found another box of shells in the spare room,” she said.

  Martin patted her back. “Let us finish it,” he said, looking to Shaun.

  Lize stepped back obediently.

  Martin rushed the remaining dead, his poker swinging. Fred followed suit, reappearing from whatever hiding place he’d found, tugging at one of the dead men’s legs, another tripping over him, sprawling across the kitchen floor.

  Their numbers were seriously depleted.

  Shaun spotted the first one he’d felled, unsheathed his knife from its eye then jumped into the action, slicing a confused looking woman’s throat with his first swing, finishing her with his second.

  They were winning.

  But then he saw Jamie.

  His son was somehow in the kitchen.

  His mother reached for the boy, screaming, but Jamie was too quick, heading for the back door, trying to push it closed.

  Martin went to help secure it, but a sudden grab from one of the few remaining dead connected, the damn thing’s mouth curling around the boy’s hand.

  “No!” Shaun screamed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  6th August

  The three remaining survivors at Martin’s house sat around the kitchen table. Not a single word had been spoken for over an hour. Each of them had cried, sometimes on their own, sometimes together, the hollow sounds of their sobs all but mirroring the low moans from outside.

  The dead were brutally persistent, still pushing and beating and crying against the back door even now, despite the heartache they had already caused.

  Inside, the corpses of their slain brothers and sisters remained on the floor where they’d fallen. After twenty-four hours in their company, the place reeked of their infection, but none of the survivors had the stomach to move them.

  Shaun slammed his fist on the table.

  “Fuck!” he yelled, fresh tears breaking from his eyes. He still couldn’t believe it. Jamie—his only son, for Christ’s sake—had been quarantined. It was too dangerous for him to remain among them. He could turn at any time, day or night, so they’d been left with no choice but to lock the boy in the garage. They were to leave him to die in there alone. And that didn’t seem right.

  He was still alive. Shaun could hear him crying even now.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Sure, the risks to all of their lives were obvious, but Jamie seemed somehow exempt to Shaun. Immune, even. But when the dead broke into the house and Jamie—his little soldier—tried to help repel them...

  No. Still not fair.

  Shaun weighed everything up in terms of effort. People who tried hard should survive.

  He’d made the effort with his own life. Achieved despite his deafness. Learned to speak, read; all in a language that made no sense to him, a language that was intangible, relayed without sound.

  He had made the effort with Jamie too. Taken him out of a falling city, retreated to the countryside. Shaun had even put aside his difficulties with Martin to ensure the boy’s safety.

  Surely that was enough!

  He looked to Lize.

  His wife wore a strained look. It reminded Shaun of her face when going through labour, giving birth to Jamie. He remembered holding her hand, the silent screams he saw her make, the sweat like mist across her skin.

  The shape of his little boy’s mouth as he made his first cry...

  “This isn’t right!” Shaun protested.

  He grabbed the handle of the door leading to the garage, twisting it.

  “Don’t be a fool!” Martin yelled, rising up from his seat. He went to stop Shaun, tried to prise the younger man’s hands from the door handle as he reasoned with him, “Think about your wife, for God’s sake!”

  Shaun was only able to catch bits of what Martin was saying, reading his lips while both men struggled with the door. But he caught enough to become enraged. He wouldn’t let that bastard lecture him on looking after his wife.

  How dare he?

  Something snapped within Shaun.

  His head crashed upon Martin’s nose, the break of bone tangible, the jerk of the older man’s body as he fell back onto the kitchen floor. Shaun then leapt upon Martin, punching and spitting and digging into him.

  White heat seared across his eyes.

  He felt another hand grab his shoulder, trying to pull him away from his prey, but Shaun lashed out at it too, his right fist unknowingly striking Lize across her cheek, sending her across the room.

  Lize tripped on one of the bodies, fell back against the edge of the kitchen table then tumbled to the floor. Her own body shook briefly—like she was having some sort of fit—and then was still. Blood pooled quickly from the back of her head.

  Shaun froze.

  Fred was first over, until that point cowering in the corner, barking as the two men struggled with each other. He sniffed Lize’s face, licking it once, twice before a short whimper escaped his mouth and he wandered away, head down and tail between his legs.

  Martin was next across the floor. He scurried almost animal-like, grabbed Lize into his arms. Rocked her to and fro, all the while keening.

  Things seemed to slow down for Shaun.

  Everything else was forgotten: the dead outside, the virus, Jamie.

  Shaun wouldn’t remember Fred wandering over to him, sliding his head into his hands, seeking comfort and reassurance. Neither would he remember stroking the dog absently, tears r
unning down his face and falling into the dog’s fur.

  He’d only remember Lize, her body still and beautiful. Yet lost to him.

  ***

  At some stage, Shaun opened the garage door and took Jamie out, just like he’d been trying to do before. Only this time Martin didn’t try to stop him. Both men knew there would be no use in that. They knew there was no use in anything now.

  They sat on the floor at opposite sides of the room. Shaun with his infected son, cradled in his arms, sleeping. Martin with his ever-loyal dog nestled in against his shoulder. The kitchen floor divided them like No Man’s Land, the bodies of the dead still lying where they’d been felled.

  Lize’s body lay amongst them.

  Shaun’s hand ran through Jamie’s damp, warm hair. The boy’s breathing was slow and laboured, in contrast to the panting of the parched dog by Martin’s side.

  The sun was valiantly fighting its way through a small gap in the wooden board covering the kitchen window. Several cadavers were prising their fingers through the gap, searching for weakness, still itching to get in.

  “It isn’t the deaf thing,” Martin said. “You can’t help that.”

  Shaun’s eyes homed in on Martin’s lips.

  “It’s Lize. I couldn’t let go of her,” Martin confided. “I couldn’t hand her over, not after all that happened...”

  The older man reached into his pocket, took something out, threw it over to Shaun.

  It fell by Shaun’s side. He picked it up.

  It was a picture. Taken a long time ago. The colour was almost gone, like it had been sitting in the sun for some years. In the picture, Shaun could see Martin, a lot younger than he was now. The girl beside him looked exactly like Lize. Only Shaun knew it to be her mother.

  Shaun threw the picture back. It landed on Martin’s lap. The older man picked it up, stared at it quietly for a moment, and then smiled.

  “It’s impossible to let go of someone you love,” he said. “Even when they’re gone. You know that now.”

  Shaun looked down at the face of his son. He wiped the boy’s forehead with an already sweat-soaked cloth.