by Lewis, Jack
Justin blinked. "You don't trust me, but you’ll trust an inkling?"
"An inkling never got me killed."
Truth was I had been here once, many years ago, so I had a dim recollection of the area. Back then though, I had been with Clara, and I had been too focused on how beautiful my new wife was to take in the scenery.
"Won't 'they' come out? The things?"
"Stalkers." I said.
"That's what they're called?"
I nodded. "That'd be the dictionary term, if someone out there was still printing them. Truth is I don't know if they’ll come out here. But I think we're good for miles on either side - there's nothing here but fields. Stalkers stick near towns and villages where they know there are people.”
Justin tilted his head to the side. "What are they?"
I swallowed. I didn’t want to spend time thinking about the stalkers. "Don't ask. Just if we ever see one, for god’s sake do what I say."
A few hours later the woods were cloaked in darkness. Somewhere in the tree above me a bird shuffled in its nest, and aside from that the only sound was the regular chirp of crickets. A breeze blew cold on my cheeks, and with it came the smell of spring onions from a patch that must have been growing nearby. The sky was so black that I couldn't see whether it was cloudy or not, though the absence of stars wasn't a good sign. The last thing we needed when we didn't have shelter was for it to start raining. I'd spent some long, wet nights out in the open over the last few years, and I didn't plan to spend many more if I could help it.
Justin had his back against a log that was led horizontally on the forest floor. The middle of it was hollow and looked like it had been chewed by something, but the hole wasn't big enough to get inside. I rested my body against a tree, but I kept my mind alert. It felt good to sit down. I could actually feel the tiredness seeping out of me; it was like a warm energy that drained from my limbs. It was a good feeling, but it would have been even better would be to get some sleep.
I looked over at the kid. He had his eyes focussed on his hands, and he seemed to be picking dirt from underneath his fingernails. Could I trust him to keep watch tonight, I wondered? I really needed to get some shut eye, even if it was just for an hour, but I didn't want to go to sleep and leave the kid watching out for me.
No, I couldn't do it. No matter how scratchy and red my eyes were, no matter how much my shoulders felt like a weight crushing me down, I couldn't sleep while he sat watch. I was just going to have to snatch ten minutes here and there when it was light. My body ached at the thought of the next morning, of another day of hiking on tired limbs.
"Justin," I said.
He looked up. His eyes were puffy. "Yeah?"
"You should get some sleep."
He put his hands on his lap. "How long've you been out here Kyle?"
"Don’t talk, just go to sleep. I'll keep watch."
Justin put his bag in front of him then led his head on it. He wrapped his green raincoat round his body and tucked it tight up to his chin. It only took fifteen minutes, and then he was out for the count. As the kid lightly snored the night away, I began to wonder how we were going to cope for the next few hundred miles. He wanted to experience what it was like out here in the wild, in the real world, but he had no idea whatsoever how to live in it. If we were going to make it to the farm without further incident, then I was going to have to teach him how to survive.
The fact was, as soon as we reached the farm he was on his own, and whether he decided to carry on living in the wilds or he decided to go back to Vasey, he was going to have to do it independently. I knew I would never buckle from the decision to leave him, but I could at least prepare him better for when the time came.
The night sky reached its peak of darkness and the visibility in the forest was less than a couple of metres. The temperate had plummeted, so I zipped up my coat and tucked my chin inside. In a way I was thankful for it, because the cold helped keep me alert.
Despite having potential hypothermia as an ally, though, my eyelids were starting to feel heavy. My head was light, my body drained of energy, my eyes closing. I struggled to keep them open as my brain coaxed me into a soft sleep, and soon I felt myself surrendering against the feeling.
***
I opened my eyes. My brain felt fuzzy from the sleep I had just accidentally taken. Somewhere to my right, I heard something crunch. I felt my face drain of blood, and one word automatically leapt into my brain: Stalker.
My shoulders went tight and my hands were clammy, but I took a deep breath, held it in and tried to control myself. I looked at Justin. The only movement coming from him was the rise and fall of his chest. I turned my head to the right and listened intently. If it was a stalker, it probably wouldn't make another noise, I knew. There were two possibilities: either it had caught our scent and it was working its way toward us, in which case the first we would know about it would be when it tore one of us apart. The second possibility was that it was a lone infected, just another corpse shambling through the forest.
Please be an infected, I thought.
Justin stirred. No, I thought, don't wake up. That would be the worst damn timing ever. To my right there was another crunch, and the sound of something dragging. I stared as intently as I could but my eyes couldn't puncture the thick curtain of darkness. Whatever it was could be metres away, and we wouldn't have the slightest idea. I looked up at the sky. Never in my life had I wished more for a little bit of moonlight.
Justin moved again. I got to my knees and crawled toward him as quietly as I could, taking care to brush my path for any twigs that could snap underneath me. When I reached him, he was waking up. He mumbled something unintelligible, and then shoved the rain coat off his chest. He was about to sit up when I put my hand firmly on his chest, pushed him down and put my hand over his mouth.
"Don't make a sound. There's something out there, but I don't know what and I don't have a clue where it is," I whispered.
I moved my hand away from his mouth. Justin quietly sat up. He looked around him, but he could see about as much as I could. His eyes were squinting into the darkness.
"Stalker?" he said.
I listened again. I could hear the dragging sound, but it seemed to be going further away. I let out a breath and felt a wave of relief. This was no stalker, and if it was, it was a pretty damn bad one. At any rate, whatever was out there was moving away from us. What worried me more though was falling asleep while on watch. That was dangerous for both us.
"Talk to me about something," I said to Justin.
He straightened up and rubbed his eyes. "You actually want to talk to me?"
I nodded. "Got to keep awake somehow, unless you got some coffee tucked away somewhere."
"What should we talk about?"
"You got a water bottle?" I asked.
He nodded.
"Pass it here then."
I took a big drink, letting the first few gulps of the cold water take care of my thirst. I sloshed another gulp round my mouth to clear the dryness. I spat it out onto the forest floor. "Ask me a question," I told him.
Out in the distance, the dragging sound got even fainter. "What happened to your wife?" Justin asked.
It was like a sucker-punch in the stomach. I'd expected him to ask something light and easy, but instead he'd gone straight in for the big question.
"Not about me," I said. "You wanted to know about the world and what it’s like living without Vasey’s walls Well, I’ve lived out here almost as long as you’ve been alive. So ask me about it."
He cleared his throat. "Why do you let some of the infected walk away? How come you don't kill all of them?
I sat back against the tree trunk. There was something sticking out from it into my back, but I didn't move. The uncomfortable sensation made it easier to stay awake.
"Just a case of conserving energy and making as little noise as possible. Don’t kill something that you know isn't going to kill you, because it's a waste of t
ime. Plus, killing things at night attracts stalkers. They can smell blood being spilt, even if it's the clotted stuff that leaks out of the infected.”
"So it's not because you think they're still people?"
I almost laughed at the thought. "Fifteen years ago they were people, kid. Those days are long gone."
"I always wondered what it was like to live back then. Moe told me you could get on a plane and visit other countries."
I looked up at the sky and thought about the last time I’d seen something flying up there. It was seven years ago, when I was with Clara, her brother David and the rest of the group. We'd seen a helicopter hover over us for a few seconds, and then it flew away.
"Is Moe your dad?" I asked him.
"Dad's dead." said Justin. His words were automatic and sounded hollow, as though it was an answer he'd been taught.
It made me think of my parents. I wondered what had happened to them, how things had ended. I liked to think that they'd died peacefully, but somehow I doubted it.
"Why did you really want to come with me?" I said. “And don’t give me this ‘seeing the world’ bullshit.”
He took a few seconds to consider the question. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper. "It's too confined there. They're just waiting to die, all of them. They never think or plan, they just drink and smoke and fight. One day they're gonna run out of food or someone's gonna leave the gate open and a load of infected will get in. Either way, I had this feeling that if I stayed there, I was gonna die.”
I nodded. “You’re not wrong.”
Justin looked at the ground. “I had a dream where Moe let one of the infected into my room while I was asleep and it ate me."
I shook my head slowly, though in the darkness I doubt Justin saw it. "It's not much better out here," I said.
I was starting to feel sorry for him. Sorry that he had been born into this world and had never known anything else. At least I'd had something of a life before all this - I had a job, a house, a beautiful wife. I was forty-two now, so I'd already had twenty seven years on earth that I didn't have to spend worrying about being eaten or seeing other people get eaten. This world was all Justin knew, and all he'd ever know. I didn't blame him for wanting to leave town, because I felt the same way as him. But that didn't change anything.
"Justin," I said.
The kid looked up.
I stretched my legs out in front of me. "As soon as we get to the farm, you're still on your own. If it comes down to life and death along the way - between me and you - I choose me every time. Don't ever forget that."
A thick cloud hung above us in the night sky. Slowly rain started to drip down, hitting the leaves of the trees in heavy patters and then falling onto us. It soaked into my clothes and skin, and made me shiver. Despite being cold and wet, I was thankful for the rain, because at least it helped me keep my eyes open.
Chapter 7
"Stop being so stubborn."
Justin stood in front of me and stared. I sat down on a rock and put my head in my hands, ostensibly using the time to think, but really trying to snatch every second of rest that I could. The kid was getting used to our long walks now and we had fewer rest stops. It was amazing what a good night's sleep could do for you.
I didn't know, of course, because I was sleeping only an hour or two a night. My body ached like it was held together by cello tape. I rubbed my head and my skull felt hollow.
"We have to take the motorway, Kyle. I know what you're saying, but just trust me,” said Justin.
The word 'trust' snapped me out of it. I lifted my head. "We don't have to go anywhere except where I say so. The village is quicker."
We were on the top of a grassy hill, high enough for the wind to collect and snap around our heads. The view was spectacular; to our west was the Ribble Valley, a collection of hills that stopped just short of being mountains, but none the less attracted waves of hikers during the summer.
Clara and I had climbed one of the modest peaks once, and I remembered having to stuff my pockets with the contents of her handbag when the handle snapped. I could remember it in minute detail, the smell of the grass as it cooked in the sun, the feeling of the breeze on my freshly-shaved head. It was stupid that this was the stuff I remembered, yet despite being together most of sixteen years Clara's face was fuzzy in my mind. It was strange, the little memories that the brain filed away and marked as relevant while forgetting other stuff. I felt the top of my head and ran my hands through my now-thick hair, messy from months without a cut.
Below us was a metaphorical fork in the road. One track would take us through a village called Blackfoot, and the other route was on the M7C motorway. Given that I’d been here before, I knew something of this place, and I knew which route to take. Justin might have liked being the guide and telling me which direction to go, but today I didn’t need him.
"I really don't want to go through the village," said Justin.
I looked up at him. With the tip of his right foot he scratched the back of his leg. He was still wearing the raincoat that was so big on him in practically reached his knees, and tucked into his belt at the front of his trousers was a hunting knife that he had gotten from a hardware store in Vasey. The silver of the blade was still gleaming. In contrast I looked down at my own, and saw the dirt that collected in the ridges, and a blade so dull that it was more useful for spreading butter that cutting. It would have to do. You could still use it to smash through a skull if you used enough force.
"What’s wrong with Blackfoot?" I asked.
"The GPRS said take the motorway."
I shook my head. "Course it did - they all say that because they assume motorways are quicker. Only this time, I know more than that piece of crap. Going through the village is better. It'll cut a day's travel at least."
Justin scratched the back of his head. "Won’t it be dangerous in down there? Won't there be more of ...them?"
"Nothing we can't handle if you can learn to walk a little quieter."
Justin took a few steps toward me and bent down. His face looked a little white. "Look, Kyle. There's something else. I know this place too."
"How?"
Justin turned round and pointed. I followed his outstretched hand and it led over past the village and to the east, where there was a warehouse building about five miles out. "Down there's a wholesaler’s. Our scouts used to come this way and make runs - the place is still full of stuff. Only, they had to stop."
I strained my eyes and tried to make out more detail on the warehouse – there was a sign on the front, but it was too far away to read. If Justin was right, though, maybe it was worth a look. A wholesaler that was still full of stock was a rare thing indeed, and my mouth watered at the prospect of the things that might be there – food, chocolate, beer, maybe even a whiskey.
"So why did they stop?"
Justin shoved his hand in his pockets. "There's a group that lives in this area. They call themselves a family, but I never heard of a family who did the things they do. They're hunters."
"What’s so bad about that?" I asked. I'd caught and skinned more than a few rabbits in my time in the wilds. You did what you could, and you ate what you could to survive.
"They hunt men,” he said, and tucked his chin into his coat.
***
The streets of Blackfoot were dirty and empty. The whole place was so silent that not even the wind dared make a sound. Despite the fact that Justin was probably talking crap, I still found myself scanning the windows of the buildings and looking out of the corners of my eyes to see if anyone was watching us. Hunters of men. What a load of bollocks. I'd lived in the wilds long enough to know that men did whatever it took to survive, which sometimes meant killing others. But there certainly wasn’t a group out there making a game of it.
We walked as quickly as we could without making any noise, and I had Justin walk close to me to keep an eye on him. Like it or not, after we got a few miles out of the village I was going to nee
d him, because from then on I didn't know the way to the farm. As soon as we got within spitting distance of it, though, he could do whatever the hell he wanted.
There was a rotten smell in the air, and somewhere in the distance I heard a feral dog bark. I reached to my belt for my knife and gave the handle a tap. Dogs were a problem whenever you got into a village or town. They ran in packs, five or six beta dogs subservient to an alpha, and they were ridiculously aggressive against anything that moved. Who thought that man's best friend would turn on him so easily?
"How far do we need to go?" asked Justin. He stared straight ahead, oblivious to any danger, whereas I jerked my head from left to right trying to scan every conceivable place an infected could be lurking.