by Colley, Ryan
No one reached to turn the song off as I suffered through the agony that the words produced. Breathing became difficult as I struggled to tear oxygen from the air. Ragged, panting breaths. My head spun. I tried to pull a breath in, but it was prevented by some great obstruction that had formed in my chest. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to get out of the van!
I slammed my foot on the brake, feeling the pulsing and chatter of the anti-lock braking system kick in. The van screeched to a stop, almost veering off the road. I didn’t know what I was doing. I climbed out and ran. I didn’t shut the door behind me. Didn’t even pick up a weapon. Didn’t even check to see if it was clear. I ran into the small cobbled side street and just kept running.
CHAPTER 22
Kirsty
“What happened?” Stephanie asked as they watched Sam disappear down one of the streets.
“Did he take any weapons?” Kirsty asked the group, fully aware of how dangerous a previously populated area could be. There could be undead anywhere. The living as well. They both met her with blank expressions. Kirsty picked up the machete and assault rifle. With that, Kirsty took off from the van herself and jogged through the same street that Sam had disappeared down.
The street was virtually clear, except for a lone zombie which was also shambling in the direction Sam had gone. Kirsty wasn’t leaving anything up to chance. She ran up behind the undead husk, grabbed its hair and forced the blade through the back of the creature’s skull. It crashed to the floor, its own weight bringing it down with nothing to keep it going. Chunky, black gore clung to the end of the machete. Kirsty wiped it on the rags the zombie wore, ignored the flies and maggots crawling around in the flesh and carried on running.
It didn’t take her long, but she eventually found him doubled over in the middle of the street vomiting. Between waves of sick, Sam was desperately pulling air into his lungs, oblivious to his surroundings. She stood there in silence, waiting for Sam to compose himself before she spoke.
“What was that about?” she finally asked.
“This isn’t fair. None of this! We’re too young to be dealing with this shit,” Sam choked out, tears flowing down his cheeks.
“Life isn’t fair Sam, we’ve been over this,” Kirsty said coldly. “We need to evolve to confront the world. The world has changed and we need to change with it. The idea of being too young doesn’t exist anymore. The undead don’t care about our age. They’ll tear us apart regardless. Childhood is an expensive commodity, and so is innocence. You need to realise that if you’re going to survive.”
“I’ve lost so much,” Sam wept, pounding the ground until his knuckles started bleeding.
“This isn’t a competition Sam, we all have. We need to survive, if only to make it right for those we lost,” Kirsty continued, her voice a little softer that time. “You taught me not to see evil in everyone. I’m living because of that. It’s my turn to do the same. You need to wake up, Sam.”
Sam wept for a few more moments and carried on sucking in air. Kirsty placed a hand gently on his shoulder until he finally stood up and walked back to the van. He didn’t say another word. He didn’t even look sad, but angry and determined. Maybe she’d finally got through to him. She didn’t think so, thinking it was more likely Sam was just burying it ready for the next explosive outburst. That didn’t stop her hoping though – they were all destined to lose so much more before their journey was over.
****
Sam
I strode back to the van wordlessly and, what I hope looked, confidently. I knew a panic attack when I had one – there was no getting away from that. However, Kirsty was right. I needed to grow up. I couldn’t freak out every time something went wrong – every time something reminded me of my family. I couldn’t become inoperable simply because life wasn’t fair. I couldn’t stop just because the odds were stacked against me. Kirsty had put it perfectly. I needed to evolve. I needed to move forward. I would never stop. I would just keep fighting and grow stronger. I would deal with all my heartache and suffering when I was somewhere safe at my journey’s end. I couldn’t face another pointless diversion. Kirsty walked beside me and I felt better because of it.
I climbed in the driver’s door, the one I’d so recklessly left open, and slammed it behind me. I didn’t meet the eyes of any of the other occupants. In fact, I didn’t even answer Stephanie when she asked what was wrong. And, typically, it was only her who barraged me with questions. Keith sat there quietly observing me. I acted like I didn’t notice. Instead, I opened the CD tray and wordlessly retrieved the ‘Metal Mix 2’ disc. I opened the door one more time and threw it away. It glided swiftly and shattered on contact with the wall. I shut the door again and carried on driving.
“Can we at least listen to something good now that the noise you called music is gone?” Stephanie finally said, breaking our self-imposed silence.
“Yeah. Keith is officially banned from choosing music,” I said as seriously as I could muster. Keith let out a bark of laughter and I smiled.
And that was how I ended up listening to ‘Ultimate Pop Chart 3’ on a road trip at the end of the world. A CD that I, to my dying day, still maintain was the single worst combination of songs ever created. Each and every song, one after the other, was just awful. There were songs about ‘big booty’, ‘bling-bling’ and ‘SWAG life’, as well as about thirty other combinations of words I never wanted to hear again. What does ‘yeet’ even mean? And with those thoughts, I swear I immediately aged twenty years and became a grumpy old man. Give me the undead any day. Ultimately their rising had done us a favour. The music industry dying to make way for whatever musical empire took its place would be a worthy sacrifice.
Then, a thought that was a joke evolved into something more – thinking about the future. Depending on how far the whole undead world went, depended on what type of music would rise. There probably wouldn’t ever be studios creating well-crafted music with pre-recorded tracks and distributed on a wide scale – not in my lifetime anyway. It wouldn’t be the utmost concern of people trying to survive. What I liked to imagine were groups of people sat around a fire, singing along to a lone guitar in a peaceful world. Music would be a way for people to reconnect, not to debate genre and style. A way to tell stories. Maybe stories about folk heroes and battles. I had such great notions for the future. After all, for something better to be built, the old must be destroyed. Just like me, I suppose … the old me must be destroyed so that a better me could survive. A past of shame and weakness, replaced by a future of courage and happiness. Like a phoenix, I would rise from the ashes of my own life. I looked at my reflection, seeing a hollow-eyed husk staring back. What would I lose in order to survive? To be a hero, or to be a survivor.
****
Stephanie
When Sam fled the van, Stephanie felt a very brief moment of joy. She saw herself in him. Saw the same darkness that she felt was driving her to madness. She recognised the fear he felt and it made her happy. She was happy because, for the first time since it all began, she didn’t feel alone anymore. No one else understood what she’d been through. Everyone seemed so strong after their ordeals. But, seeing Sam weak, she felt he might be able to understand her. Everything would be okay! Sure the future was hopeless. Sure she was alone but, going forward, she could be hopeless and alone with Sam. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t even a crush developing. It was the thoughts of companionship. The chasing away of isolation. She would no longer be in a chasm of despair.
All those flights of fantasies changed when she saw Sam returning. He didn’t look upset or frightened anymore. He looked like he was okay. Like he was dealing with it, and that hurt her. How dare he be fine? He was meant to be her salvation! Having no hope was bad, but having the only hope you had wrenched from you was even worse, and that was exactly what Sam had done when he returned with a goddamn smile on his face. Stephanie knew she needed a way out. She needed an escape. Her entire body sagged with the weight of
everything that had happened. She’d had enough.
****
Keith
Keith felt as though he was in a unique position as the not-so-reluctant prisoner. He was close enough to the problems that he could see them, but removed enough to be able to view them objectively. He could see things where the others couldn’t. He felt as though the life he’d lived attributed to the insight he had.
What he saw in Sam was a man on the edge. He saw someone entrenched in anxiety and borderline PTSD, and he was struggling. He’d been struggling for a long time and Keith knew that. However, struggling didn’t necessarily mean losing. It meant he was fighting, and fighting was important. If you were struggling, you hadn’t given up. Keith saw a man who was so unsure of who he needed to be, and it was taking its toll.
Kirsty, on the other hand, was a woman who just adapted. It didn’t matter what was thrown at her, she would overcome it and become stronger as a result. What she’d been through was enough to destroy anyone. Yet, she was the most unchanged of them all. She wasn’t better because of what happened to her, no one could be, but she wasn’t going down without a fight. She would fight until the point she wasn’t physically able to anymore. He hadn’t known a single person who came out the other side of some horror and had been unchanged at the core – somehow, someone sat in front of him who had done just that.
Then was Stephanie, who was on the opposite end of the spectrum, so entrenched in what the world had done to her. She wasn’t fighting like Sam, or adapting like Kirsty – she was falling. She was faced with challenge after challenge and just wasn’t rising to it. Not because she wasn’t capable of it, but she just couldn’t anymore. She was falling apart at the seams, worn so thin by the world, and no one seemed to notice.
“Hey, Stephanie,” Keith tried, too aware of her downward spiral.
“Don’t talk to me,” she spat back without looking at him. No one else responded – that was a normal interaction between them at that point.
Keith couldn’t say anything – he was just the ‘prisoner’ after all. He couldn’t do anything about it either, because Stephanie still saw him as the root cause of every issue. If he stepped in and tried anything else, he could do more harm than good. The one who could help was Sam. Sam was the one holding the group together, and he needed to realise that soon if everyone was to pull through. The group needed Sam, and Sam needed the group. When the hell would he realise it?
****
Sam
The question of whether to be a hero or a survivor plagued me far more than it should. I felt as though I was at a crossroads. Both paths would be met with struggle and heartache. I was certain of that. If I were to take the path of the hero, my body may be destroyed, but I would leave the world with my mind intact and my soul as pure as it could still be. I could spend my time helping others, ensuring their safety and goals at the expense of my own. I may even lose my life in the process, but at least the world would be better due to my efforts. On the other hand, I could be a survivor. That would mean doing anything I could to keep going, be it at the expense of others to pursue my own goals. I would have to turn away from those that needed help just to save myself. I could even end up sacrificing others to survive. And all in an effort to see Alice again. My body would go on, but could I survive with the burden of guilt that I would surely end up with? That was a question I needed to face, and I didn’t know which I would choose. I thought about seeing Alice again, and I thought of the people I travelled with and their safety. I couldn’t help but think that the fate of one would come at the expense of the other – there was no hero-survivor crossover.
CHAPTER 23
We carried on driving in silence, no one wanting to speak, all the way up until darkness fell. I didn’t know the exact time – the clock was in the back with Keith. Not that it mattered. With summer settling in, if it was dark, it was late.
One thing that was apparent, as it has been so many times on our journey, was just how much time there was in a day. I mean, it wasn’t like mysterious new hours appeared following the end of the world. However, without the small pre-apocalypse distractions that we were so used to, every second of every minute of every hour was so perceptible. There was no work, or television, or podcasts, or anything to break up the day – just driving, followed by more driving.
The only thing that remotely broke up the monotony of our self-imposed silence was the drone that Stephanie called music – not that any of us were truly listening to it. It was just there to fill the background in an attempt to make our silence endurable. Even Stephanie, who picked the drivel, didn’t look like she was listening to it anymore. In fact, she didn’t even look like she was aware of her surroundings. She looked vacant. Sick, even. She was slumped in her seat, unmoving. She stared out of the window in front of her, but she wasn’t seeing any of it. She wore the same glassy expression I’d experienced so many times.
“Oi, Steph,” I said, snapping my fingers near her face. She swiftly came back to reality and acknowledged me with a weak smile. I gave a tightlipped humourless nod back, glad she wasn’t entirely lost. A thought came rattling back – something that I’d been putting off. I needed to sit down and have a long and careful conversation with her. The heartfelt talk I’d had with Kirsty. I needed to do the same for her in an attempt to wrench her from the edge of her abyss. Maybe I could throw her the lifeline she needed? Finding one on one time with Stephanie was difficult. It would just have to wait for a little while.
I didn’t believe that I was some sort of magician who could save someone from darkness. I hadn’t reached that point of delusion … yet. But, I felt that I could help by guiding them to a decision they needed to make. It was my duty. And that was the hero complex I was sure I was developing. While I had people in my care, and as long as they needed me, I would be there for them. It was out of necessity and not for my own ego – I was playing the hero, for them. Or so I told myself.
I knew it was madness having deep internal debates with myself. However, I used to talk to someone else to sound ideas out, and I hadn’t done that for a long time. Thundy. Sure, talking to a stuffed animal would be frowned upon by my companions – it would be at that point that they would doubt my sanity and probably leave me on the roadside. However, talking to Thundy brought me peace of mind. It helped me think. It helped me to be rational. Even if I had to remind myself that Thundy wasn’t capable of conversation. However, he’d developed a life in my mind, different from the one Alice had given him. Whereas the life she gave was from innocence, mine was from the loss of it. The need to find a way to cope. And, anticipating the next conversation I would have with him somehow eased the growing shadow in my mind. There was only so much one person could deal with.
“I think it’s time to pull over for the night,” I said finally, as my eyes closed and I drifted towards the edge of the road for the third time. I didn’t want to stop, I needed to keep going. We had time to make up for! Fortunately, I had the safety of my companions to worry about. Driving at night was an agreed danger. Falling asleep at the wheel was another.
I followed our pulling over routine of turning the headlights off and driving slowly in darkness for a while. I thought back to the supermarket and instinctively clenched the wheel as my world rocked at the mere thought of it. How long before I could think of that event and not feel repulsed? Never, you should always feel sickened by your actions – you’re a monster. And the voice was right, I should never be comfortable with what I’d done.
We eventually rolled to a stop. Nowhere special, just somewhere on the side of the road and slightly obscured from view. A small, one-way road – which I’d gone down the wrong way, had road laws still existed. There were hedges on one side, and a river on the other. The only avenue of attack was in front and from behind. Both were equally dark, and neither had working street lamps. The result of the spreading power failures? It worked to our advantage that night though – the only light was that of the moon and stars. Sure we
would be at a disadvantage, but so would everyone and anything else.
We all climbed out of the van and began setting up our place of rest. Naturally, I volunteered for the first watch. Not that I wasn’t tired, but I couldn’t bear to sleep after the events of the previous few days. I didn’t know what my dreams would bring.
Keith set up on the tarmac so that Kirsty and Stephanie could sleep in the back of the van – Stephanie refused to share that space with him. A very noble decision on his part – not that he seemed to suffer as a result. He was asleep in seconds. I swear he thrived on discomfort. I shook my head as I investigated a small stretch of road ahead on foot. I needed to have a theoretical escape route.
We could drive up the road, or reverse back the way we came. Worst-case scenario, we could even go straight through the hedge. As far as I could tell, there was only a single building on the other side of it. If we needed to leave on foot, for whatever reason, we could just jump the rail and go straight down the embankment and into the water. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than immediate death. I returned to the van and took my place on top of it. It was my lookout. I rested the silenced and scoped SA80 on my lap, took a deep breath and listened to the night.
Just sat there and listening to nothing helped me threefold. The first, and foremost, was to listen out for anything approaching. The undead didn’t disguise their approach – I would hear the wet slap of unsteady and uncoordinated feet. Add to that the never-ending moaning and snarling, I would hear them long before they knew of my existence. The living, on the other hand, were the complete opposite. They could disguise their approach and develop a plan. However, if they didn’t know we were there, they wouldn’t sneak up on us. They would continue making noise and I could listen for that. Besides, people trying to be quiet had a habit of being louder than intended.