by Ben Stevens
‘Look after my... daughter,’ she said in that low voice, the words slightly slurred. ‘Please... promish me... you’ll look after Abigail.’
Parker nodded, coughed slightly to clear his throat, and then said levelly –
‘I will. I promise.’
Jan’s eyes fell shut again. Obviously, uttering even those few words had completely exhausted her. She was dying and then she was going to turn. Parker knew this now. A fresh crop of boils had appeared on her face and forehead. That sickly-sweet stench growing ever stronger.
Parker looked back at the sleeping girl. Tried to think of what to do but his brain was being tired and unhelpful. Wearily he stood up. Maybe that action would jog some sort of idea.
It did. Parker had to act quickly. He got his torch and went to another bed and dragged the mattress from it. He then pulled this away from the area where Jan was dying and her young daughter was sleeping. Kept pulling it with one hand (the other hand holding his torch) out of the Beds and Bedding department and through the Lighting and General Furniture departments until he hit a wall.
He almost ran back, not wanting to leave the young girl alone with someone who was shortly set to transform into a thing. He picked Abigail up, who moaned slightly but did not awaken, and carried her to the mattress he’d sited at the rear of the superstore’s second floor. He laid her down gently, fearful she’d awake, but she remained asleep.
His heart heavy, Parker again returned to stand beside Jan’s bedside. She was barely breathing now, the stench around her appalling. Parker produced his gun from out of his jacket and got the chair Abigail had previously occupied and sat down and stared steadily at the dying woman.
...He almost saw the soul leave her body. The faintest, shimmering patch of light descending upwards in this gloomy, candle-lit area. Or maybe Parker was just going nuts. Probably the latter, he thought with a bone-crushing sense of weariness, wiping the hand not holding his gun across his face.
There was a big, plump pillow on one of the other beds. Parker stood up and picked it up. It would have to do. He’d no idea if his plan would be successful – but he’d put this pillow on side of Jan’s head the moment he was certain she’d become a thing and push the barrel of the gun into it before firing. This would naturally muffle the sound of the shot, which would hopefully mean that Abigail kept sleeping in the area that was as far away as Parker had dared put her, and maybe limit the mess the bullet made of Jan’s skull.
Parker had shot some things in the head and the bullet had lodged neatly somewhere in their brain and left only the smallest of entry marks. This was what Parker was hoping for, so maybe – maybe – the young girl named Abigail wouldn’t twig Parker had shot her mother in the head before Parker got the woman decently buried.
...But then on other occasions Parker had blasted things in their skull and a load of bone, blood and brains had blown out of the rear of the side of their heads. No way of disguising that. All down to pot-luck, he guessed.
‘...Shhhabigail,’ said the thing, the eyes which had remained fixed and wide-open in death now again, slowly, beginning to move. Parker held the pillow in one hand, and the gun in the other, and began to move the couple of steps to the bedside. He had to do this now, before the thing had any chance of getting up...
‘Mommy!’ came the shriek by Parker’s right hand side, just before two small hands caught his right wrist.
The thing sat up, the upper half of its body rising with taut strength. Its grey-skinned and boil-festooned head turned round, to stare at Parker and the young girl still clinging with surprising strength to the wrist of his gun-hand.
‘Shit,’ breathed Parker, trying to shake his arm to get the girl off.
‘Not my mommy! Please!’ begged the girl, Parker briefly turning his head to see her pleading, uncomprehending, tear-stained face.
‘That’s not your mother,’ Parker began. ‘That’s not your – ’
The hiss made him whip his head back in the direction of the thing. It was already off the bed, standing there in blood-caked jeans and T-shirt. It stretched out its clawed hands and lurched towards Parker in the darkness that was only now barely illuminated by the nearly-consumed candles.
Again, Parker tried desperately to ‘shake’ the girl from his arm. But she continued to cling to him with that despairing grip which lent her an unnatural strength.
Parker grabbed his gun with his left hand and raised that arm. Had never fired left-handed before, but the thing was close enough that he didn’t have to worry too much about accurate aiming. Another hiss and a fine spray of evil-smelling saliva coated his face at the same moment as he pulled the trigger and sent a bullet shooting into the thing’s forehead. It blew out the back of the skull (having been such a close shot), taking a clump of brains with it. The thing all but collapsed on Parker, who fended it off with his left forearm, awkwardly guiding it to the ground.
And then Parker was attempting to guard his groin and lower legs against Abigail, who was screaming incoherently at him as she thrashed at his body with her hands and feet. This she was doing in darkness, as the last stub of candle spluttered out.
I can’t take anymore. I just can’t.
In that darkness Parker could have left the young girl to her nightmare and just fled as he’d fled before. Hardly as though anyone would have known. He was more physically and mentally exhausted than he’d possibly ever been before and here was this young girl screaming at him in a voice that jarred his worn nerves even further and made him want to lash out with his gun.
Better that he just fled, perhaps, before he did such a thing...
But finally he put the gun back in the inside pocket of his light jacket and caught the girl by her shoulders, effectively pinning her so that she couldn’t move from the spot. She’d exhausted her shock, horror, rage – whatever the hell it was – and now just shook with deep, gut-wrenching sobs.
Aged just seven or eight she’d endured a hell that far surpassed any comprehension of the word that he might have had, realized Parker. First she’d lost her father to some ‘sickness’ (what this ‘sickness’ had been exactly Parker had no idea, though he doubted it was the plague itself) – and now she’d just witnessed a man who was all but unknown to her put a bullet through her mother’s skull...
Parker’s fatigue-related rage relented and he lent down to face the girl in the dark. He fumbled for his torch and then let it shine slightly away from Abigail and him, so that it wouldn’t freak her out even further.
‘That wasn’t your mother,’ he began, hesitantly. ‘Your – mommy had got very sick, and she became...’
‘Like those people outside?’ questioned Abigail.
Even in the near-darkness, Parker’s heart flared with hope at this question. As young as she was, this girl still at least partially understood.
‘That’s right, honey,’ nodded Parker. ‘Real sick like those people outside. They... they bit your mommy – you remember that, right? – and that made her turn into something else. And that something else – the thing you saw get shot – wasn’t your mommy any more. You understand that, Abigail?’
‘I... I...’
Parker grabbed her by the tops of her arms and dug his fingers into her biceps.
‘Do you understand that?’ he demanded, almost starting to shake her. ‘I didn’t – ’
Too late did Parker get a grip on himself and relax his hold on Abigail. She’d started to cry again. Parker sat down, cross-legged on the floor. A black cloud crossed his mind but then it frequently did so anyway. Fuck black clouds. They only mattered if you chose to take notice of them. It was hardly compulsory that you absolutely had to do so.
‘That wasn’t your mommy,’ reiterated Parker then, his voice flat. ‘It was a monster. But before your mommy died and became a monster, she asked me to look after you. And I said that I would.’
For a few moments, Parker thought that he’d chosen entirely the wrong words to say.
But I don’t
know what the fuck to say anyway.
But then Abigail sat down cross-legged on the floor of the Beds and Bedding department opposite him, only a few feet from where her mother lay.
Should put her back on the bed thought Parker. Back on the bed and wrapped up in a sheet ready for burial. No later than first thing tomorrow morning. Warm inside and out. Get her buried – good and deep.
‘Will you kill me?’ asked the girl quietly.
Parker turned his face away from her and fought down a massive urge to weep. If ever he wanted someone to put an arm around his shoulders, to say to him ‘Hey Parky, everything’s going to be okay’, then it was now.
But no one was going to do any such action or say any such thing. Parker wiped the back of his hand across his nose and said quietly –
‘No, honey, I won’t kill you. Fact is I’ll help you stay alive, if you let me.’
‘And you had to kill my mommy because she became a monster?’
‘That’s right, hon–... Abigail. Because she became a monster. I’m sorry, but... it’s what your mommy wanted.’
Would perhaps have wanted would have been the correct choice of words. But still Parker felt that he was sort of telling the truth, anyhow. Either way the dead woman named Jan had asked Parker to look after her daughter, so that was what he was now morally obligated to do.
Shit, I’d have done it anyway. Ain’t that fucked up from my multiple dealings with things and hogs just yet...
Abigail took a deep breath. Parker could see only half her face, illuminated by the torch he’d trained to shine away from them. Still, Abigail looked to be thinking real hard.
‘Okay,’ she said at length, giving what was almost a reluctant sigh. Her mother still lay little more than a few feet away, some of her brains lying on the carpeted floor.
‘My mommy wanted it, so... You can look after me,’ declared Abigail then, nodding slightly. ‘It’s okay.’
Parker put his hand forward, took one of hers in his. For a moment she made to whip it away; then, again with some evident reluctance, she let Parker hold on to it.
‘Thank you,’ said Parker, his breath escaping him almost in a sob.
He fought to regain control of his voice; before he again said, more steadily –
‘Thank you.’
Across the sprawling car-park at the back of the superstore was a grassy area with a fence in front of it. Parker had to work hard and fast with Abigail following him where he went. On the ground floor of another superstore, following one of the colossal maps placed at the entrance, Parker found an array of hand-tools including a pickaxe and spade.
He demolished part of the fence at the rear of the car-park and laid the tools down on a flat spot in the grassy area. He didn’t dare leave Abigail outside (he made sure they always remained some distance from the things – still lying there by the small flight of stairs leading down to the electricity storeroom – which Parker had killed yesterday), and so she returned with him to get her mother.
Parker had wrapped the dead thing up in several sheets. Only a little blood showed through. He had persuaded Abigail, without too much difficulty, that she didn’t want to see her mother’s face for the last time. Because Abigail would clearly never forget how her mother had appeared in those few nightmarish moments before Parker had shot her. Hissing, boil-covered, grey-skinned...
The practical side of Parker was relieved to note that although Abigail remained subdued and tearful over her mother’s death, she seemed to now fully comprehend the fact that the thing Parker had shot had not been her mother...
Parker dug the grave. The soil was a little sandy. He looked over on the horizon and there were the first of the misty mountains, set against a late summer’s blue sky, he knew were in the desert he had to cross. With Abigail.
If things hadn’t been hard enough before...
Parker was sweating freely by the time he’d dug down about five feet. Fortunately the soil was pretty loose. He placed Jan’s sheet-covered corpse at the bottom and Abigail started to cry pretty loudly. Parker put his hands on her shoulders and comforted her as he observed a couple of things appear some distance off, coming from the direction of the car-park.
That reminded him – how had Jan and her daughter come to be attacked at the bottom of those few stairs? Jan had managed to get them both trapped pretty good, which didn’t make sense considering the space all around. But then – maybe the husband had been the one who’d done such thinking and figuring up until the time he’d got sick and died. Had kept the small family safe and alive, as it were.
And now Parker had to think not only for himself but also for this small girl, and that was the way it was.
...Abigail suddenly gave a small scream. Parker started, only to realize that she’d just seen the couple of things who were still a good distance away.
‘’Scuse me, honey,’ said Parker, drawing his gun. Taking a few respectful steps away from the open grave with the sheet-covered corpse at the bottom of it, Parker briefly took aim and fired. Quickly took aim and fired again. Replaced his gun in his inside jacket pocket and returned to stand by Abigail’s side.
‘Anything you want to say to your mommy, ‘goodbye’ and things like that, please do so,’ said Parker. ‘I’ll... I’ll finish here when you are ready.’
His words sounded awkward and strange to his own ears. But Abigail appeared to understand his meaning, for looking up at him and nodding she then returned her attention to the grave. She closed her eyes, and moved her lips silently. A low wind ruffled the grass all around – it hadn’t grown very high, realized Parker, even with no one around to cut it.
Something to do with this sandy, poor-quality soil, perhaps, conjectured Parker distantly...
‘...Okay,’ said Abigail eventually.
She stood and watched as Parker backfilled the grave. Parker picked up the tools and deposited them by the edge of the car-park as he and Abigail returned to the long road lined with several superstores.
‘What now?’ asked Abigail simply.
‘I... I have to get back somewhere,’ began Parker, hesitantly. ‘But...’
‘But what – you don’t want me to come with you?’
Parker knelt down to face her.
‘Hey – let’s get this straight,’ he said gently. ‘We’re sticking together from now on, okay?’
‘I guess.’
‘So I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do, but also let you know if there’re any difficulties as such.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
Parker almost gave a small grin, the girl’s face so serious. But he kept his own expression composed as he replied –
‘We’ve got to get across about a hundred miles of desert, lying over in that direction,’ he declared, pointing. ‘Thing is, I don’t quite know how to tackle it. Walking – that’s going to take a long time. Going to be hot and hard.
‘And... Well, I’m afraid I never did learn to drive anything; and in any case, the couple of highways running through that desert are likely to be real clogged up with other vehicles, as the roads everywhere generally are anyway.
‘So, you see the problem,’ summarized Parker with a shrug. ‘I’m still trying to figure out exactly what we should do – and we’re no longer so far from the desert.’
‘What about a bicycle?’
Parker looked down at the girl, shook his head and this time did give a small grin.
‘You might just be onto something there, Abigail,’ he said.
It was perhaps the best suggestion Parker had ever heard. Why had he not thought of it himself? Didn’t take long to find a bicycle department in one of the superstores; and there Parker found the ideal thing.
A bicycle with a two-wheeled, wide-bottomed hard plastic ‘trailer’, with a covered seat for a child on top. Originally designed for the mom-about-town to be able to get her shopping with child in tow, realized Parker.
Parker took the bicycle off its stand, next to th
e gaudy sign displaying the fact that it was On Sale!, and, with difficulty, carried it down to the entrance of this superstore. (The tyres were flat, but using the pump attached to the bicycle’s frame, Parker soon had them rock-hard again.)
It was in this entrance that he was stockpiling everything he needed for the desert-crossing, scavenged from the various departments within this and the several other superstores, Abigail helping to carry such things as canned food items in a shopping basket. There was bottled water but this was past its sell-by date for drinking. Still, Parker and Abigail were able to make use of it to wash and clean their teeth.
Abigail’s suggestion that they travel by bicycle had changed everything in Parker’s mind. Laden as the ‘trailer’ of this green-colored bicycle now was with supplies and such – and would get even heavier with Abigail’s weight – and accounting for those times Parker would have to proceed slowly through the vehicle-clogged highway, he still figured he’d be able to travel maybe fifteen to twenty miles early each morning (soon as it became light enough to see) until it became too hot to travel. Then he’d find the nearest patch of shade, where they could rest up until such time as they could set off again.
Travelling this way, reckoned Parker, they might be able to cross the desert in as little as five days...
They’d set up camp in an area of the same superstore where Parker had collected everything he needed for the desert journey. A different superstore to the one in which Parker had shot dead the thing which Abigail’s mother had become. This was the final night they would spend on two large and luxurious sofas in this Home Furnishings department. Parker had made them dinner, using a small gas cooker he’d got from the Climbing and Outdoor Activities section to cook canned potatoes, vegetables and spam.
They cleaned their teeth, said goodnight, and then Parker again put the gun near him as his brain partially closed down, sufficient so that he could sleep for the next few hours.
They set off just as the sun was beginning to rise. Abigail had found herself an orange cap and she wore it sitting in the trailer. Parker found it hard to pedal at first, but once he picked up momentum it wasn’t such tough going. The wide road was flat and there weren’t so many abandoned cars to circumnavigate. Parker suspected there would be many more once they reached the desert, however. Because many people had tried escaping the plague that way...