Usually.
Now he felt agitated.
‘Well, Dad, I’m here. I made it.’
He felt foolish talking out loud like this. He took a squint over his shoulder, back across the floodplains to where the cottage was lost amid its screen of vegetation. There was no one around. From here he could see across the loch and high up on the opposite hills could make out the pale shapes of buildings, but he could imagine that he was the only man left alive in the world and that this lake, serene in its beauty, was all his. But he couldn’t be sure of that.
Lowering his voice a tad, he asked, ‘Dad? Are you there? Can you hear me?’
There was a plop somewhere from across the water; a fish breaking the surface. Josh laughed to himself. It would be ironic if there was such a thing as reincarnation and his dad had come back as a trout. Typically, Josh would hook him and piss him off even more. He laughed at his stupidity, and realised that laughter was a great healer. He felt more at ease.
‘I wish you were here with me Dad. I wish things were like they used to be between us. I’m … I’m sorry.’
He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. Nothing he’d done to upset his dad could be called a fault. Not joining the police force at any rate. It was a good career move, an honourable and noble calling. He understood that his dad would have a disliking for the uniform, after the violence he’d been subjected to, but that was a thing of the past, not indicative of the modern police service. Yet he felt he must say sorry, because his dad had always been too stubborn to do so. Jesus, before he’d died, the old man had given express instructions that Josh should not attend his funeral, and having a stubborn streak of his own, Josh had said he had no intentions of going anyway. He had stayed away, too, even though it had broken his heart.
‘Dad. I know you didn’t mean it. I didn’t either. I hope now that you can see that. Please, I want things to be good between us again.’ Josh checked around, making sure no one was in earshot. ‘Can you do something … give me some sort of sign that you have forgiven me? I don’t expect miracles, but a tug on the fishing line would do. If it’s not you,’ – he coughed out a laugh – ‘at least I’ll maybe catch a fish.’
The line didn’t tug, and he didn’t catch a fish, but he did get a sign of sorts.
He heard a scream.
Bloody capercaillies, he thought, noisy buggers are going to scare away the fish.
Josh wondered about taking supper along at Kenmore village. The hotel there had a bar, and a couple of pints wouldn’t go amiss either. Except a couple of pints would probably end up as four or five and there’d be no way he could drive the car back along that narrow road if he was three sheets to the wind. He wasn’t being holier than thou, not concerned about a copper being caught drink driving, but it was a certainty that he’d end up driving off the road and into the cold water of the loch. There were still a couple of eggs and some rashers of bacon left over from the landlord’s supplies, so he opted for a fry up instead. His second of the day, but what the hell, he was on holiday!
Once he’d eaten his fill he was at a loss at what to do. He thought about turning on the TV, but he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t. He wasn’t here to vegetate in front of a bloody television, he could do that at home. He decided to take a walk, maybe even try and catch sight of one of the super-grouse he’d heard calling earlier. When he went out he was surprised at the density of the night. Someone who spent most of their time in a city had no real comprehension of darkness, not until they were somewhere as remote as this and it fell on them like an executioner’s hood. Josh had appropriated a Maglite torch from the storeroom back at his nick, and he went to fetch it from his car. He flicked on the beam and followed it back along the driveway to where it met the main road. He had two choices, left or right, because he couldn’t bring himself to enter the forest directly ahead. He took a right, thinking about checking out the telephone booth, and seeing if it really did have all its glass intact, a working receiver and if the coin box hadn’t been jimmied. He made himself a bet that – even out here – somebody would still have taken a piss in it.
In the car the booth had seemed practically adjacent to the cottage’s driveway, but it was much further on foot, in the dark. Josh wasn’t too bothered, he’d stocked up on calories and was dressed warmly, and actually enjoyed the feel of gravel crunching underfoot. Plus, he had another cigarette as he strolled, feeling liberated. Back home in Newcastle, he often felt like a leper when he sparked up, and couldn’t abide the disapproving glances from the café culture set who’d taken over the city centre. Jesus, once the Toon was the domain of the rough and ready working class, now it was so far up its own arse that it’d be better off down the poncy south.
Coming to the phone booth he took a squint inside. All – as he’d guessed – appeared to be in order. Yet, the nagging doubt that criminals were everywhere these days won out and he lifted the receiver and held it to his ear. He smiled in self-satisfaction. There was no dial tone, no nothing in fact because the line was dead. There was a card for a local taxi firm shoved into the doorframe. Back home in the Toon it would have been flyers for “escort” services. He glanced round, feeling rebellious, thinking of christening the telephone box with his own mark, but decided against it. He loved the remoteness of this landscape, the beauty and tranquillity, and he wouldn’t despoil it by taking a leak in the living antique of the phone box. He turned slowly from the box and looked up a short track to a couple of cottages set back on the hillside. Both were in darkness. He couldn’t recall seeing anyone in or around the houses earlier in the day and decided that they were probably holiday homes, vacated much of the year by owners working in the City. His rebellious streak was still nagging at him for action and he made do with flicking his cigarette end in the direction of the empty homes. The sparkling ember shot through the dark like a miniature comet, struck the drive and dissolved into a shower of sparks.
He sent the beam of the Maglite up into the forest. The stark light was in contrast with the night, casting dense shadows from the tree limbs, and he fancied that things were moving just beyond the arc of the torchlight. He steadied the beam, probing the dark. Nothing. Not a super-sized grouse in sight. He grunted, what were the chances of seeing one of the illusive creatures anyway? As far as he’d been able to glean from his brief discourse with the twins at the café earlier, capercaillies were as rare as Geordies around here.
So what the fuck was making all that noise?
Twice now he’d heard faint squawks from some distance.
Now he heard one much closer, and again he couldn’t help but think that it sounded chilling, more a scream of pain than a birdcall.
He turned full circle, running the beam over the forest, the road, down towards the loch and then back to the forest again. He was no coward, and it wasn’t the first time he’d heard screams, but something about these sent an uncanny feeling squirming into the pit of his gut. He began to slowly back-pedal, before turning and walking back towards his rental cottage. Before he knew it his steps had grown more rapid and the torch was jiggling in his fist with the jarring contact of his boots on tarmac. Feeling stupid, he made an effort at slowing down, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. He was creeped out and the feeling didn’t sit well with a tough copper from the Toon. To calm himself, he stopped and pulled out his packet of cigarettes. He thumbed one to his lips, and set a flame to it from his chuckaway. It took a couple of attempts; each time he placed flame to ciggie his rapid exhalations doused it. He swore softly to himself. Down by the loch he had been hoping for the spectre of his dead father to come stand alongside him, but now that he was imagining all kinds of supernatural beasties out in the woods he was trying to convince himself that he didn’t believe in ghosts. He practically jammed the lighter to his cigarette and drew the flame to it with an angry intake. The smoke invaded his senses, giving him more of a rush than the first fag he’d had. He shuddered out his breath and blue wisps veiled his face, swam acr
oss the torch beam. The smoke stung his eyes, bringing forth tears. He flapped his left hand to clear the smoke from his vision.
‘Fuck me!’
He stepped back, at the same time lifting the torchlight to illuminate the figure that had suddenly appeared from out of the gloom. He bit down on any further expletives.
The last thing he had expected to meet out here in the remoteness was a small girl.
‘Hello … uh, what are you doing out here at this time of night?’ The girl wasn’t dressed for the cold, in pyjamas and bare feet. ‘You must be freezing. Where’s your parents?’
The little girl stood as she had since she’d appeared on the road. Her hands were tight by her sides, her chin tucked on her narrow chest, her hair hanging lank over her face.
‘Little girl,’ he tried again. “I’m a policeman, OK? There’s nothing to be afraid of. Where’s your mum and dad?’
He took a step closer, conscious of making any quick movements that might frighten the child. The last thing he wanted was to spook her and have her race off into the woods. Shit, for all he knew the kids out here were tough little buggers and often roamed around in their PJ’s, but he doubted it. No way did he want to be responsible if she ran screaming from him and got lost in the forest to perish from exposure.
He used the torch to illuminate himself, just briefly before returning it to the child. ‘Are you lost? Do you need help?’
The girl didn’t answer, but she did turn her head slightly as if listening.
Or had she looked towards the seemingly empty holiday homes?
‘Do you live up there?’ He pointed back the way he’d come.
Again he got no reply. Hedging his bets, he took another slow step forward. He expected the girl to flee at any moment, but she didn’t. The opposite was true, she matched him with a step of her own. He glanced down at where her feet were pale blurs against the road surface. They looked blue with the cold and were smudged with dirt. Now that he was closer he could make out a motif on her pyjamas – some cartoon character he was unfamiliar with – but also that her PJ top was smeared with dirt and something that glistened as the torchlight played over it. Christ, if she didn’t look like one of the latchkey waifs from the estates …
The girl lifted her head.
Where the beam struck her features it was reflected wetly and he saw that thick globs of stringy mucus hung from both nostrils. The streams of snot ran down her top lip, over her chin and hung like ribbons of gel all the way down her front. Poor kid, that was one hell of a head cold she had. No, not a cold, he realised. The poor sod had got the flu that was raging throughout the country. He had to wonder now if she was suffering from the illness and she’d wandered away from her home in a delirium. As much as he wanted to avoid catching the flu he couldn’t allow the kid to be out like this.
‘Hey,’ he called again, ‘we have to get you inside, little ‘un. Will you let me take you home?’
‘Noo,’ the girl said.
His instant thought was that she’d said no, but that wasn’t right. The sound wasn’t as much a word as it was a groan that came deep from her chest.
‘It’s OK. I’m a policeman. I’ll make sure that you get home to bed. You’re parents are waiting for you …’
‘Noooooo.’
The little girl’s head had come up further, and though he didn’t want to temporarily blind her, he stroked the light across her features. The beam sparkled on the goo on her lower face, but it was as if the dark pits of her eyes sucked the light into them. Despite himself, he felt his anus twitch a couple of times as he stared into their endless depths; they were lifeless voids, the eyes of a corpse.
‘Jesus,’ he said under his breath.
‘Noooooooooo …’
He took a step back now. Her voice had risen in pitch and volume, and he watched as her mouth stretched to a wide oval as she reared back and continued the weird call.
Noo, he thought, what the fuck is that? It took him all of a split second to realise. He was in the depths of Scotland: she wasn’t saying “no” she was saying “now”. Actually, she wasn’t saying it; she was screaming it at the top of her lungs. And there was only one reason why she’d be calling “Now”. It was a command, a direction, a fucking signal for someone else to act.
In the next split-second he understood. The girl was a decoy. She had held his attention allowing someone to creep up on him.
He spun round, bringing up the heavy torch as if it was a Neanderthal’s club.
For the second time in as many minutes he was stunned by what he saw.
Another child was behind him; a boy this time, a little older than the girl, but still slight and waifish. His mouth and chin were smeared with mucus and his eyes were as dead as the girl’s.
If that was all he faced then he wouldn’t have been too concerned, but there was movement at the periphery of his vision and figures began to shamble out from the tree line above and from down by the loch side. He took a step back, realised that the girl was too close behind him and spun round to see what had become of her. More figures were stepping out of the darkness, and some of them were chanting the same word over and over. ‘Noo. Noo. Noo.’
Then he heard that same high-pitched screech that had punctuated the night already. It wasn’t the mating call of a bloody capercaillie after all! It was a sound of hunger and longing that some of the shambling figures emitted. Like the girl’s single word, the shriek too was a signal, and he didn’t have to be a genius to understand what it meant.
Attack!
His mind flashed back to during the earlier drive back from Killin, and the look of hunger that the woman in the hotel car park had sent after him. The radio had been a distraction that he hadn’t really been paying attention to but its message must have sunk in subconsciously. The radio signal had been breaking up, crackling, stuttering, but he recalled the stories of the flu plague and the attempts at vaccinating the sufferers. He recalled the unsubstantiated rumours that the “expert” so flippantly dismissed. But it was true, it wasn’t a story conjured by the panicking populace, a flight of fantasy borne of fear, of loathing, of mistrust of a despised government. The vaccine – untested and rushed – had dire side effects. It was killing people in their droves. But worse than that … it was then bringing them back. And they were hungry!
The boy grabbed at him.
In terror he kicked out and sent the boy tumbling across the road.
A fat farmer type, a flat cap perched over a once flaccid face, grabbed at him and he had to dodge aside to gain space.
He snapped his gaze around, watching as the figures shambled towards him. Dozens of them, blank eyed, mouths open and drooling. Some of them already carried signs that they had already fed because there was blood on many chins. Some even showed that they had been previous victims, but that they had risen to join the ranks of the undead puppets of the vaccine. Some missed parts of their faces, or their limbs; one even tripped over his own entrails that were pooled around his feet like links of sausage in a butcher’s window.
He caught a waft of hot air, a charnel house stench that made him gag, as the nearer figures lurched towards him. Their hands were coming up, reaching and grasping.
He sought a way past them, but he was surrounded.
He was in the wilds for God’s sake! How could there be so many people here to fall victim to the plague?
Of course nowhere in the mainland is that remote anymore. Even in an outback, out of the way place, like this loch valley, there’d be dozens, no hundreds of people. He remembered that a few miles away at Kenmore there was a large holiday complex, a hotel, a village. The same could be said for Killin, and all of the hamlets and farms dotted in between. Christ! He had come here to get away from it all, but that wasn’t possible. There was nowhere on earth safe from the Apocalypse that was coming, he now understood.
He wouldn’t give up, though. Not while there was a chance. Even the slimmest opportunity for survival had to be grabbed
at.
He ran.
There was no clear way through, for the shambling things were encircling him, but there was a narrow gap just ahead of him filled only by the small girl. Those around him were primarily adults, some of them slighter, but most bulkier than him. The girl therefore was the easiest target for his torch as he ran headlong for her.
He swung the Maglite up and back over his shoulder, then at a full gallop swiped the heavy torch down like an axe. It smashed the child’s head, and the rest of her down to the floor and he vaulted over her collapsing figure. Hands snatched at him, but he jerked free and continued running. A chorus of screams followed him, but he broke free and fled, his heart in his throat, for the safety of his rental cottage, and the car that waited for him there.
The phone box was broken; his damned mobile phone had no signal out here. His only hope of escape and assistance was if he made it to his car, locked the doors and got the fuck out of there as fast as he could.
Holiday of the Dead Page 10