by Jones, Isla
I staggered back, the knife raised in my shaky hand. Castle aimed the gun ahead just as a shadow lurched out of the trees. It tripped over the bush and staggered to a stop. It saw us, and we saw it—the reddened, bloodshot eyes piercing through the darkness of the night, the tattered clothes smeared with blood, bits of flesh stuck in its teeth.
It wasn’t a shadow. It was a rotter. A young one; fresh and muscular and strong.
I screamed.
I know I shouldn’t have, but it was an instinct. I screamed and scrambled backwards, moving behind Castle. Castle pulled the trigger. The blast bounced off the hills; a siren to nearby rotters.
The rotter crashed to the dirt, landing with a thud. Before the breath of relief could be released, something made me turn around. That something was a sudden stench of death, a brush of wind tickling over my back; and the sound of footsteps.
I barely saw it before it snatched me. I was yanked away from Castle. Castle whipped around, but he only glanced at the rotter that had me in its arms. He lifted the gun. I could see down the smoking barrel aimed just above my head. But he didn’t get the chance to pull the trigger. Two more rotters came sprinting out of the trees and charged at him.
Castle was tackled to the ground. The gun went off; the bullet lodged itself into a tree.
The rotter tried to drag me back—away from Castle. I cried out, tearing at its scabby arms. I threw up my legs, high in the air, before I heaved my entire body down. My weight shoved us downwards. As I landed on the ground, the full force of the rotter’s weight crashed onto my back. Its fingers tangled in my hair, its legs straddling me, its mouth open and ready to bite down on my skin.
My hand reached out and snatched a rock. I tried to wriggle away, but my front was pressed firmly into the ground. Its face swept down, a crazed movement to rip me apart with its teeth. Just as it neared, I shoved the rock backwards and the rotter smacked its mouth into the hard stone. The shatter and crack of its teeth made me shiver.
I held the rock in place, right at the nape of my neck. The rotter smacked its head down again, trying to bite through the stone to my skin. It pulverised its own teeth.
My wide eyes darted around for Castle. It was hard to see, and that’s when I realised that there were tears in my eyes. My gaze lingered over a limp body a few metres away. It was dark, and through the tears it was hard to tell what—or who—it was. But then I saw movement ahead, by the bush and trees that the rotters had come from. I squinted.
It was Castle, fighting off the second rotter. He ducked out of the way as the creature lunged at him. He spun around and kicked the infectee in the back, sending it crashing into a sturdy tree-trunk. But Castle didn’t use his gun—he didn’t have it. Where was it?
I glanced around the dirt, searching for the gun. A glint of metal caught my sight—a metre away from me was my knife. It must’ve fallen out of my hand when we’d crashed to the dirt.
The rotter let go of my hair. It was switching tactics. If it scratched me, I’d be doomed. It took the moment—digging my shoes into the dirt, I bent my knees and, just as it leaned back, I scrambled forward. A cry caught in my throat; the rotter snatched my leg, trying to drag me back. I kicked out at its face, hard enough to hear a crunch.
It shook its head, as if shaking off the sudden pain. I spun around, hand outstretched, and dove for the knife. The dirt shot up at me as I landed. A groan, stifled and pained, choked at the back of my throat. I grabbed the knife and spun around, just as the rotter soared through the air. It smacked onto the dirt beside me, right where I was a second before.
I fumbled with the knife, lifting it up; the rotter’s wild face was smeared with dirt, red eyes fixed on me. It scrambled to its knees. It jumped forward, a vicious snarl crawling through its open mouth, its yellowed teeth ground into jagged scraps.
I rammed the knife upwards. A squelch came from its eyeball. The blade of the knife pierced its eye; the rotter jerked. My hand gripped onto the handle and twisted. The rotter twitched. Its other eye stared at me; its hand lazily dragged over the dirt towards me.
I rolled away and got to my feet, leaving the knife stuck into the rotter’s face.
As I balanced myself, another large figure came sprinting toward me. A rotter was right behind it, racing after the shadowed figure.
Before I could dive out of the way, the shadow grabbed me. It snatched my arm and kept running—the blaze of his eyes gave him away. Castle’s grip was tight on my arm, so tight that his fingernails dug into my skin. But we kept running; even through the pain of my ankle, we staggered and skid down the hill.
The last rotter was right behind us; its throaty snarls tore at our backs, gaining closer and closer each time.
“Where’s your gun?” My cry hitched as I jumped over a boulder. The landing rattled my ankle, and sent explosions of white light behind my eyelids.
Castle jumped over a bush. “Lost it.” His voice came in grunts as he skidded down the muddy slope. He made to grab me; I scrambled beside him, losing balance. “Winter, look out—”
It was too late. The rotter smacked into my back; my feet slid out from under me before the slope rushed up to meet me. I landed on my side; the rotter crashed onto a boulder beside me. Gravity won; we tumbled down the hill. The rotter knocked Castle off his feet on the way. We rolled—limbs tangled together—a rotter entwined with us.
The slope was too steep. I tried to dig my fingers into the dirt, to stop tumbling, but I only broke nails. Castle rolled into me. I grunted as he elbowed me back, manoeuvring me behind him before—the crack of Castle’s stomach hitting a boulder drowned the snarls of the rotter.
Castle held on. I crashed into him, my head bouncing off his hard shoulder. I sucked in a bite of air through my teeth. Castle’s arm wrapped around me. We’d stopped tumbling.
My body would ache all over after that night. Before I could gather my wits and climb out of the daze I was in, Castle had jumped to his feet, grabbing a rock as he did so. The rotter scrambled up the hill; I didn’t see how it’d stopped itself from rolling. I wondered, for a moment, if it’d copied Castle’s tactic, but that would be ridiculous. They’re not that smart…right?
The rotter jumped—hands splayed, ready to grab onto its prey. But Castle lunged forward at the same time. He brought the rock down on the infectee’s head, cracking it against its skull. The rotter dropped to the ground. Castle moved with it; diving on top of it, rock in hand, before he struck the creature again.
I winced, looking away. The horrid crunchy squelches had my stomach churning. Bile seared at my throat as I perched myself on the boulder and kept my gaze on a fallen bird’s nest.
When the thumps and grunts stopped, I chanced a glance back at Castle. The rotter didn’t have a face anymore. It didn’t have a head anymore. I swallowed back the acidic bile, and watched Castle get to his feet.
Blood soaked him. Splotches of it dripped from his mousy-blonde hair; crimson smears streaked up and down his golden arms, and his grey t-shirt had a jagged circle of deep red blood on the front. Have you noticed that when blood dries it never looks like it does in the movies? It turns brown, not dark red, like a peeled banana left too long to rot in the sun.
Castle ran his fingers through his hair. He might as well have dunked his hair in a bucket of blood; the blond came away in ruby-red patches.
I don’t imagine I looked much better. My peach-blond hair had tangled around my face in balls of matted blood and dirt, my freckles were probably hidden by smears of a rotter’s gooey brains, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I had cuts and bruises all over my face.
My eyes followed Castle as he came down the hill toward me. I waited for the icy chill of his voice, for him to tell me how useless I am, and to learn just how much he hated me. But he stopped in front of me, his apple-green eyes piercing down at me, and he just sighed.
A moment passed before he knelt down in front of me. The sheets of green in his eyes demanded my full attention. “If you really wanted to d
ie,” he said, “you would have let those infectees kill you.”
Castle stared at me, and while his eyes still held their veil of sharp stone, I wasn’t as afraid of him as I had once been.
“Do that again,” he said as he helped me to my feet, “and I’ll let them tear you apart.”
3.
Castle said we had to move.
The cave by the lake wasn’t safe anymore. We’d been there for too long and after our fight up the hill, more rotters might come. We left before the sun had even kissed the sky.
My ankle slowed us down. Castle had redressed it with a washed bandage and we’d cleaned ourselves in the lake before leaving. When he’d taken his shirt off, I spotted a bruise—bigger than my backpack—covering the side of his torso. If I hadn’t seen the bruise for myself, I wouldn’t have known he was injured at all. No one has a better poker face than Castle.
We walked for the first day, only stopping for toilet breaks and to rest my ankle. His chilly silence told me how much he loathed that I was with him. But if he hated me so much, he shouldn’t have saved me—he shouldn’t have stolen me from Cleo or the cliff-side.
When night came, the calls of the rotters creaked through the trees. They were close, too close for us to camp for the night. Castle and I hiked uphill, but no matter how high we climbed, the rotter cries seemed to follow us. It wasn’t until we reached a stream that I realised why the rotters were following us.
“They can smell us,” I said, perching myself on a mossy boulder. My fingers curled into the stone as the pain of my ankle slipped into a dull throb. Castle slid off his bag; it thudded to the dirt, where my gaze rested. As he washed his face in the stream, I stared at the damp dirt beside him.
“We need to keep moving,” said Castle. He caught water in his cupped hands and gulped it down. “If we do that, they won’t catch up to us.”
“They will. They always do.” The loss of hope clung to my voice. I spoke of more than that day, than that moment. I spoke of an eternity in that world, one that couldn’t ever be outrun. “I have to show you something.”
Castle made a noise, somewhere between a hum and a grunt; a noise of total disinterest.
I slid down to the dirt and ran my fingertips over the brown grains. It was damp, like mulch. Castle looked over his shoulder, watching me—making sure I didn’t do anything stupid, like roll my ankle again, or throw myself into the stream. I won’t lie; the latter crossed my mind.
The soil crumbled, the way a moist a cake would, as I stuffed my fingers into it.
Castle’s eyebrows pulled together. “What are you doing now, Winter?” he asked, a bland exhaustion roughening his voice.
“Just watch.”
I hate the feeling; the slap of the soil on my skin, dirtying my clothes, clogging my pores. But I did it anyway. I scooped up chunks of earth and smeared it over my face; lathered it over my peachy hair; covered my freckles with it. Some got into my mouth. I spat out the stray grains. But I didn’t stop until I was covered in soil.
I glanced at Castle. He stared back as though I was a mere granule of dirt myself.
“The dirt,” I said, “is like a camouflage. It masks the smell of our blood—of our lives. If we come across any rotters, all we need to do is stand still. They’ll pass us like we’re not there.”
Castle’s impassive expression remained in place. He just looked at me for a few seconds. Then, he knelt in front of me and gathered clumps of dirt in his hands. I helped him, and smeared it over the back of his jumper.
We hiked through the woods covered in a thick layer of dried, cool mud. It only works if the mud—or blood—is cold. The rotters can’t feel any body heat from you, they can’t smell any life on you, otherwise the jig is up and you become lunch.
We moved, slow and quiet. Castle led the way, using the position of the sun and stars to guide us. A couple of rotters stumbled upon us. Castle did as I’d told him. He froze; rigid and stiff, like a statue. With neither of us moving or wafting up the scent of warm blood, the rotters staggered on by us. My trick worked. And when it did, Castle couldn’t hide the flash of surprise in his emerald eyes. He was impressed. It smudged me with a tinge of pride—I’d impressed the coldest delta I’d ever met.
The hike carried on. It wasn’t until the second day that we came across the cabin.
The stone cabin hugged me with relief. Tucked away in the middle of the woods, the cabin was nestled at the edge of a lake—a lake the deep shape of Leo’s dark eyes.
I beat down the thought of Leo, and followed Castle inside.
Inside, the décor spoke of a wealthy family who had once lived there. I wondered if they had made it to safety during the outbreak, or if they’d died on their way to the cabin. It was a good place to hide from the rotters.
After we checked the rooms inside, making sure there weren’t any infectees, I let myself relax. Even though the cabin was clear, I stayed near Castle, just in case. We set up camp in the living room.
Castle filled the fireplace with wood; we would let it burn for a few hours until night came.
While he built the fire, I wandered into the kitchen that looked out over the living area. There wasn’t a pantry, so I checked all of the cupboards until I found what I was searching for—food.
When I checked the long cupboard by the fridge, I froze.
“Castle!” I said. “Castle, get in here—you have to see this!”
Castle was quick. Within seconds, he was behind me, looking over my shoulder at the cupboard’s contents. I could feel the warmth of his breath tickle through my dirt-caked hair.
The cupboard was beautiful. Every shelf was crammed with tins of beans, soups, fruits and custards; there were stacks of two-minute noodles, packets of pasta, cans of fizzy juice, and even cartons of long-life milk. I hadn’t had milk since before the outbreak.
Castle reached up to the top shelf and pulled out the metal box anyway. I followed him to the island bench, my gaze on him as he unclasped the lock and flipped the lid open.
“Score,” I said. Castle shot me a funny look, but I ignored it—the packets of painkillers and wrapped bandages had my full attention. I plucked an orange bottle from the box and scanned the label. “Diazepam,” I read aloud. “Prescribed to Michael Roberts.” I put the bottle back in the tin. “Think he’s still alive?”
Castle didn’t make any attempts to hide the sarcasm from his voice; “Do you?”
With a humph, I wandered back to the pantry and grabbed a bag of cheese-flavoured corn chips. “No dip,” I mumbled to myself, then limped to the living room.
Castle came in after me. He held saucepan filled with packets of macaroni and cheese, long-life milk, spoons and two bowls. My stomach growled at the sight.
I didn’t help make dinner. I ate my corn chips and watched.
By the time we’d eaten, the sun had set. Castle snuffed the fire, and the cold was quick to take the cabin. We couldn’t relight it. The smoke would give our position away to the rotters. We’d shut the heavy curtains, barricaded the doors with furniture, and lit a few candles.
“I’ll check the property tomorrow,” said Castle.
He lounged on the bed I’d arranged on the floor. Summer and I used to do that—steal cushions from the sofas and mattresses from the bedrooms to build a somewhat cooler bed in a different room. It was more exciting when I was a child, but building the bed in the cabin ignited a spark of nostalgia in me.
As I picked at the last of the corn chips, I stretched out on my side.
“What for?” I asked, licking the crumbs from my fingers.
“There’s a shed out back,” he said. “There might be a car in it.”
I stretched out further across the mattress until my head rested on a pillow. Castle’s eyes followed me. His sock-covered feet rested near my knees, and his hands were clasped behind his head. I propped my head up on my hand and met his watchful stare.
“We already hit the jackpot in the kitchen,” I said. “No one is luc
ky enough to find food, a safe place to sleep, and a car. It just doesn’t work that way.”
His eyelashes lowered, and I thought for a moment that he was blinking, but then I saw the steady gleam beneath the dark lashes. He was tired, I realised. But it didn’t surprise me; we’d been hiking through the woods for days and he’d supported my weight much of the time. In more ways than one, I suppose.
“No one has been here,” he said. “Whoever owned this place was prepared for an emergency visit. Why else would the kitchen be stocked with that much food?” He paused to yawn. “We’ll check the shed in the morning.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” I mumbled.
I hoped he was right, I truly did. But I’d learned in this world to never get my hopes up.
Sleep took us not long after. I slept across the bottom of the mattress.
When I woke up in the morning, I was on the mattress alone with a fluffy blanket draped over me. Embers glowed in the fireplace, and the faint perfume of coffee reached my senses. There is no better smell in the world to wake to than coffee.
Tugging the blanket over my shoulders, I sat up and looked around. From the make-shift bed, I could see the island bench in the open plan kitchen, but Castle wasn’t there. The fridge that we’d pushed against the back door last night had been moved.
I got up and wandered to the door. Through the dusty glass, I could see the morning glisten of the lake; Castle wasn’t there, either.
There was a strange sound from outside. I didn’t know if it was a growl, deep and low, or a choke. I heard it again; I strained my ears to listen closely.
I realised what it was. It was a sound I’d heard many times before; one that riddled me with frustration and despair. It was the sound of a car trying to start, but a car that would rather sleep through the pain of this world.
With a huff, I pushed through the door and limped across the lot. The earth was flattened beneath my feet, only little tufts of weeds poking out of the dirt. There were tyre marks streaked across the ground and many of them led across the lot to the blue-painted shed.