“Is this what?” she said, confused by the question.
“Is this the end of the world?” Liz said, looking off into nothing.
“What—like end-of-days, Armageddon-type deal?” Billy asked.
“Whatever you want to call it,” Liz replied.
“I don’t think it’s the wrath of God, if that’s what you mean,” Colin said.
“Nah, can’t be the rapture. I don’t see any piles of clothes—and let’s face it: I’m still here,” Thomas joked.
“They bombed the hospital,” Liz said, still in her trance-like state.
“Trying to stop the spread, I guess,” Colin surmised.
Thomas waved a thumb at the window. “Did a fat load of good, that. Look at them all out there.”
“Look, if they bombed the hospital, that’s a fairly major action. That would have to have been authorised by someone pretty high up and that implies there’s a plan a big plan,” Sharon said.
“How’s that help us?” Billy asked.
“Well, it means the government is trying to fight this thing,” Sharon reasoned.
“Why haven’t we seen anyone since Monday?” Colin asked. “Not even a police car.”
“I don’t know. There aren’t any major army bases, or navy or air force nearby and this isn’t a big city. If everywhere is like this, then I imagine it could take a while for them to get round to us. They’d secure key locations first, like power stations and food depots or oil refineries.”
“I suppose,” Colin agreed.
“Bombing the hospital didn’t work. What makes you think they fared any better elsewhere?” Thomas asked.
“Maybe it did work. Maybe things would be a lot worse now if they hadn’t,” Billy commented.
“We can’t think like that,” Sharon said. “We have to stay focused and positive or we’ll never get through this.”
“Ha! With busy work like your flip chart there?” Thomas mocked.
Sharon straightened up and shook her head. “No, with planning and positive action. What’s the alternative? Sitting around and waiting to die?”
The office doors opened and Melissa walked in, dog in arms.
“Where have you been?” Liz demanded.
“On the roof walking Blow,” Melissa lied.
“Okay,” Liz acknowledged.
“Well, let’s leave all this until morning,” Sharon said.
“It’s getting dark and right now we should be thinking about bed,” Liz said, looking over at her daughter.
“Aw, Ma, why do I have to?” Melissa protested.
“Your mother’s right,” Sharon said. “It’s been a long day and we all have the comfort of the camp beds and sleeping bags now, so we can get a good night’s sleep.”
“It is getting late and we’ve all had a busy day. Now go and brush your teeth,” Liz ordered.
Melissa whined, “Ma!”
“You need to keep your teeth clean and your gums healthy,” Liz said.
Melissa stuck a frown on her face.
“Don’t get stroppy with me. You have to brush your teeth, madam,” Liz said more sternly.
“I haven’t had to do it since we got here,” Melissa complained.
“We didn’t have toothpaste and brushes before now, so get to it.”
Colin rustled among his possessions. “I think your mother is right. My breath is getting a bit stinky too.” He pulled out his own toothbrush, still in its cellophane and card wrapper. He stood up. “Come on, we’ll both go together. You bring the toothpaste, I’ll bring my teeth.”
Reluctantly, Melissa put the dog down and was about to follow Colin when there came a commotion from one of the tents. There was some rustling and thumping.
The flap flew open and John tumbled out.
“Out the way!” John gurgled.
The obese man stumbled in the dim light, falling forward, carried by his own weight.
Colin held an arm out and held Melissa back.
John rushed past, his cheeks swelling.
As he entered the stairwell he collapsed to his knees and a rush of vomit spewed from his mouth.
Melissa screamed.
John sat hunched over, continuing to vomit, the splashing noise echoing round the stairwell.
“Go back to your mother. Melissa; there’s a good girl,” Colin urged.
Colin stood with his hands on his knees, bent over slightly, the acrid smell of bile clutching at the back of his throat.
“You all right, John?” he asked.
John retched again, letting a string of saliva stretch from his gaping mouth down to the floor.
“You want a towel or a drink of water?” Colin asked.
John nodded his head as he gasped to catch his breath back.
“What’s happening?” Sharon called from the campsite.
“John’s been sick,” Colin called back.
“Anything we can do?”
Blow trotted up to the pool of sick and started lapping at it.
“Clean-up in aisle six!” Thomas joked.
“Oh God, that’s disgusting, Thomas,” Sharon said.
“Melissa, would you take Blow back into the office and keep her away from this?” Billy called through the open office doors.
“Isn’t someone going to get him a towel or something?” Liz asked.
“Uh… oh, yeah,” Colin responded. He scampered off to the toilets.
“Are you okay, John?” Sharon asked.
“I don’t feel too good,” he moaned.
“It’s no wonder, considering the amount of leftovers you scoffed,” Thomas said.
“Fuck off!” John cursed.
“Bet you’re glad you skipped the Cajun wrap now,” Billy said, nudging Thomas.
John rolled over into a sitting position with his back against the wall. His crumpled sweat-stained shirt now sported a cascading damp patch of vomit from his chest to his bulging gut.
“You don’t look so good?” Sharon said, looking at his pale, waxen face.
He burped and the smell of vomit wafted into the air.
“I feel sick too, Ma,” Melissa said, holding the small dog back.
“It’s the smell, honey. It makes you feel sick,” Liz said.
She put an arm around her daughter and led her back to the camp.
Colin returned with an armful of paper towels.
“You’d better get cleaned up, John,” Sharon advised.
John nodded slowly while wiping the puke from his chin.
“Would one of you boys go help him?” Sharon asked.
“Why? It’s his own fault for being such a greedy pig,” Thomas said.
“Um, yeah, sure,” Colin replied.
Colin lent in to give John some support, then seeing the wet vomit glistening on his shirt, thought better of it.
Painfully, John hauled himself to his feet. Colin opened the door to the gents’ toilet and ushered him inside.
John walked slowly with faltering steps. He waddled, shifting his body weight left and then right, breathing heavily, his chest heaving.
“Looks like one of them,” Thomas whispered.
“Thomas!” Sharon chastised and turned to go back into the office.
“Who’s going to clean that up?” Thomas demanded, pointing at the puddle of sick on the floor.
“You’re the janitor,” Sharon answered without looking back. “You clean it up.”
“Whoa—no fucking way!”
When Sharon didn’t respond, he went marching into the office after her.
“For one, I’m not a janitor. I’m a maintenance engineer and for two, you’re not the boss of me. That’s woman's work,” Thomas spat.
Sharon froze in her tracks and whipped round.
She snapped, “I am your boss and I am not prepared to put up with your sexist attitude.”
“I don’t see me getting paid overtime for this shit, so no; no, you’re not my boss—you’re just a stuck-up bitch who does fuck-all but strut around drawin
g charts and giving everybody orders. You clean it up. You do some work for a change.”
“Do not take that tone with me,” Sharon warned.
“You don’t know when to shut the fuck up, do you?” Thomas replied.
“Let’s all just calm down,” Liz implored.
“None of you seem to have realized what’s changed here,” Thomas said, addressing the whole room. “It’s no longer about who’s got the connections, who’s got the right education at the right schools, who plays squash with the managing director—it’s about who has the nuts to get stuff done and half of you lot have done fuck-all to help. So no, I will not be treated like a skivvy. You go clean it up.”
Sharon stood impassive, her arms folded across her chest.
“Get on with it!” Thomas shouted, frustrated at being ignored.
Sharon shook her head. “I don’t think you—”
Thomas grabbed Sharon by the hair at the side of her head and pulled her back out towards the stairwell.
The room erupted into a cacophony of screams and shouts.
There was a scuffle, hands grabbing and pulling.
Colin came back into the office to see Thomas being firmly held by Billy, and Liz comforting Sharon.
“You had enough?” Billy asked loudly. He had his lips mere millimetres from Thomas’ ear. He asked again, louder, “I said, have you had enough?!”
“Fuck you,” Thomas said, rolling his shoulders trying to prise Billy off.
“What happened?” Colin asked, stunned by the turn of events since he’d been in the toilet.
“Thomas here got a little rough with a lady,” Billy explained.
Colin looked over at Sharon. Her hair was tussled and there were tears streaming down her face.
“Have you calmed down, Thomas?” Billy asked.
Thomas snorted and nodded his head.
“I’m going to let you go now, but don’t you think of trying any nonsense.”
Thomas shook off the arms holding him back. He stretched himself up to his full height, turned, and stormed off out of the office.
“Are you okay, Sharon?” Liz asked.
Sharon ran her fingers through her hair and felt a damp welt near her temple. Thomas had succeeded in wrenching a tuft of hair from her head.
“I'm fine,” Sharon said, composing herself. “We’ll need to keep a close eye on Thomas from now on.”
“He tried to touch me,” a voice said from the back of the room.
The group turned round to see Karen sitting by her tent.
“What?” Sharon asked.
“Last night, when everyone had a drink,” Karen said.
“Where? What happened?” Colin asked, stepping forward.
“On the landing on the fourth. He pushed me against the wall and groped me.” Karen folded her hands over her chest.
Liz let out a little gasp and looked at her own daughter.
“I tried to fight him off, but he didn’t stop until I scratched his face,” Karen explained.
“That’s where he got the mark from,” Colin surmised.
“That sick shit,” Billy cursed, whipping round. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”
Liz shouted, “Wait!”
Billy stopped.
Liz went on, “I know he’s a problem. Christ, what if it had been Melissa he attacked? I don’t know if she’d have the strength or clarity of mind like Karen to fight him off. But we have to think this through. What happens when you get him, Billy? Do you actually kill him?”
“I’m going to beat the crap out of him at the very least,” Billy said.
“Then what?” Liz asked. “He won’t take a beating and just forget about it. He’ll want to get his own back. And on who? Just you, Billy? Or Karen or me or all of us?"
“What are you saying?” Colin asked.
“I don’t know what I’m saying. I don't know what we should do. I just know we need to stop for a moment and think about it." Liz said.
“The guns,” Sharon said.
Colin shrugged. “What about the... Oh, shit.”
He whipped round and dashed into the stairwell.
Propped up against the barricade were the two rifles. With the clatter of metal on metal, Colin picked them up and returned to the office.
“He didn’t take one,” Colin said, relieved.
“What about the two at the other stairwell?” Liz asked.
“I’ll get them,” Billy volunteered, hurrying off.
“We can’t let Thomas get his hands on a weapon,” Sharon said.
“I agree,” Liz replied.
“I think we should keep them together in here,” Colin suggested. “That way they’re close at hand and we can all keep an eye on them.”
“Christ knows what he might do if he kicked off with a gun in his hand,” Sharon observed. “That’s the last thing we need.”
The doors swung open and everyone turned round expectantly.
Mo was standing there holding a flashlight with a look of confusion on his face.
“What’s going on? Who’s been sick?” he asked, looking back at the crowd.
“Long story.” Colin said. “Thomas attacked Sharon and he tried to touch up Karen last night.”
“Where the hell have you been, anyway?” Sharon demanded.
“My rounds,” Mo answered.
“Useless security guard you turned out to be,” Sharon said. “You’re never around when we need you.”
“Eh? What about the sick?” Mo asked.
“John. He’s in the toilet being sick,” Colin explained.
“He’s got food poisoning from eating all of the leftovers,” Liz elaborated.
“Food poisoning doesn’t start so quickly,” Mo said.
Billy came back into the office carrying the two rifles.
“So what is it?” Colin asked, walking over to meet Billy.
“What is what?” Billy asked, placing the guns down on a crate.
“John being sick. Is it food poisoning?”
“I don’t know what’s causing him to be sick, but I'm worried,” Mo interjected. “What if it’s something we can all catch? What if it’s something serious?”
The room was silent other than the constant moaning coming from outside.
“What if he’s got their infection?” Mo said, looking towards the window.
“One thing at a time,” Colin said. “What about Thomas?”
“He tried to rape a little girl,” Billy said.
“I’m not a little girl,” Karen protested.
“That’s hardly the point now, is it?” Billy chastised.
“What can we do about that, reasonably?” Colin asked. “Do we put him on trial? If we find him guilty, what then? Imprison him? Castrate him?”
“What?!” Sharon gasped, appalled.
“Too right,” Billy said. “I’d cut his nuts off for him.”
“We could banish him,” Liz said.
“How?” Colin asked. “Open the front door and say, off you go, hope you don’t mind pushing your way past those two thousand cannibals?!”
“We’ll lock him up,” Liz suggested.
Colin shook his head. “Lock him in a meeting room and slip his meals in under the door?”
No one replied.
“We could lock him out,” Sharon suggested.
“What do you mean?” Liz asked.
“Lock the stairwell doors. He’s keen to stay in the plant room; why not let him?”
“Not going to work,” Billy said. “He’ll just take the doors off the hinges. I know he’s an idiot, but even he could manage that.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Colin said softly.
“What if he attacks one of us again?” Liz asked. “He might not stop at a bit of hair pulling or a quick fondle.”
“Colin’s right,” Sharon admitted. “There’s not much we can do.”
“There’s plenty we can do,” Billy said. “I can go down there and kill him.”
&nbs
p; “No you can’t, Billy,” Mo said.
“Who’s going to stop me?”
“No one,” Mo replied. “But if you kill him, who do you become? If you kill him, how do you think we will react to you, knowing you’re capable of doing such a thing?”
Billy’s eyes narrowed as he obviously concentrated on what Mo had said.
He looked around at the faces of the people in the room. Sharon with her hair still out of place looked more angry than hurt. The other three, Liz, Karen and Melissa, looked terrified.
He looked into the eyes of the youngest girl, Melissa. He saw a fear and confusion in that child’s face that he realized was the result of his rage and had little to do with Thomas’ outburst.
He looked back at Mo and then at the others.
“I swear I won’t let that perv do anything to hurt you,” Billy promised.
“What are you going to do?” Colin asked.
Billy shook his head, his lips clamped tight. He took a snort of air in through his flared nostrils as he mulled over the problem.
“Nothing for now, but if he crosses that line again I will hand-feed him to those things out there.” Billy pledged.
“Colin, would you go and have a talk with him? Try to calm him down a bit?” Sharon asked.
“Me?” Colin said in surprise.
“You’re good with people,” Sharon explained.
“I’ll go,” Mo volunteered. “I wasn’t here for the scuffle, so maybe he’ll see me as neutral in all this.”
Sharon nodded and Mo left the office.
Colin sat down on one of the heavy-duty plastic crates that now housed their supplies.
“Should we really be sending him on his own?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Sharon admitted. “If any of the rest of us go, we’ll probably end up antagonising him.”
“I suppose,” Colin replied.
From outside a car horn beeped.
Colin stood up and ran to the back window overlooking the car park. “Is Thomas taking a car and leaving?”
The car park was pitch black now that the sun had set and Colin pressed his face against the glass trying to spot movement below.
“Surely not,” Billy said, joining him. “Where would he go?”
“More to the point: will he open the gates and let them inside?” Colin said.
“He won’t get the refuse bins out the way on his own, will he?” Liz asked.
“I don’t see him,” Billy said, examining the darkened car park.
Demise of the Living Page 24