by Casey, Ryan
Nothing.
He was still. The vehicle had stopped. He was stuck in the middle of a fucking field, metres away from three army vehicles, and he couldn’t move.
He looked over his shoulder. Looked back at Alan, who mouthed something like, “What’s up?”
Riley looked at the woods. Looked at the lights.
Except there was something different about the torch lights now.
They were coming back in his direction.
He twiddled with the knob of the powered wheelchair. Tried to lift himself off the wheelchair, but that only wracked his body with pain. The voices were getting less muffled. The laughs were getting more comprehensible, closer.
He looked over at the armoured vehicle. He had to try and crawl. He had to throw himself off this fucking thing and try and…
He heard something else. Something shuffling to his right.
A shuffle that he’d not heard on the outside for some time, but a shuffling—accompanied with a stomach-turning smell—that he’d be able to tell from a mile away, that would stay with him for the rest of his life, however long or short that may be.
When he looked to his right, he guessed “short” was a more accurate assumption.
There were tons of creatures. Tons of them, all wandering out of the blanket of darkness.
All wandering towards Riley.
Chapter Seven: Chloë
Chloë stood completely still as Ursula stared at her, twiddling the beaded chain of keys around her neck. Even though it was dark, Chloë could see from the lines on Ursula’s head and the shaking lips that she was very cross with her.
She tried to talk. Tried to say something, but her throat felt like it had monster’s hands tied around it. Or like she was underwater and forgot to hold her breath and let the water inside her mouth.
She was stuck. She couldn’t move. Her arms and legs felt so heavy.
“You tell me right now what you’re up to, you little sinner,” Ursula said. She took a few steps across the creaky wooden floorboards, walked right in Chloë’s direction.
Chloë tried to back up. She tried to back up, but the wooden cabinet was behind her. She looked to her right, her head spinning. The door. She had to go through the door. She had to run. She had to get out.
“Don’t even think about running away.” Ursula’s voice snapped through Chloë’s thoughts and brought her back to square one, looking at this horrible lady in her scary eyes. She was twiddling with the keys still. Twiddling with Chloë’s mum’s necklace. “After everything I do for you. After—after running a bath for you, saving you from the heathens, letting you sleep in your mother’s own bed.”
“My mum, she…she died.”
Chloë’s voice was a whimper. She felt her face go warm right as she said it, and she wasn’t sure whether it was the right thing to say especially because now Ursula wasn’t saying anything either.
Ursula frowned. She let out a little laugh that sounded more like a cough. “Your…your mother died, did she?” Her voice was like she was making a joke. She tutted. Shook her head. “Your mother died?”
“That—the necklace,” Chloë said, pointing at Ursula’s neck with her shaky hand. “I bought it for her for a Christmas present. And—and it’s Christmas tomorrow. And I just wanted it back.”
Chloë watched and waited as Ursula frowned. Watched as she looked down at the necklace on her neck, moved her fingers away from the chain of keys. She muttered things to herself, like she was a crazy lady, which was funny because she smelled like a crazy lady too.
And then she looked back at Chloë. Looked back at her with narrow eyes.
“You…That’s all you were after? Just the—just the necklace?”
Chloë’s heart was going at the speed of light, even though it wasn’t because she knew nothing was faster than the speed of light, but it had to be close. She kept her mouth shut. Nodded. Nodded and hoped Ursula would believe her. Hoped she wouldn’t get mad at her.
Ursula shook her head, sighed, and half-smiled. “Oh, Beatrice.” She took a few steps towards her. Planted her cold, spindly fingers on the back of Chloë’s head. “Such a confused little girl.” She planted herself down on her knees, looked at Chloë right in her eyes. So close that Chloë could smell that nasty perfume again, that nasty sourness on her breath.
“I’m your mummy, Beatrice,” Ursula said. She grabbed Chloë’s hands now. Grabbed and squeezed them with her nails. Squeezed them so hard that Chloë wanted to pull away, but she couldn’t, she had to let Ursula do this, she had to. “I’m your one mummy and your only mummy. Hmm?”
She stroked Chloë’s hair with the outside of her hand. Chloë wanted so much to flinch away, but she knew she couldn’t, she knew it was the wrong thing to do.
“It will get easier,” Ursula said, stroking harder now. “All of this, everything will get easier. But you just need to trust your mummy knows what she’s doing, hmm? Need to trust we’ve got things under control here. Because we do. We really do.”
Every time Ursula said “mummy,” Chloë wanted to scream in her face. Her arms tightened up like they did when she’d been on the rope-ladders for too long in P.E. Gymnastics class.
But she didn’t scream at Ursula. She had to go with this.
Just for now.
“Come here,” Ursula said. She placed a heavy hand on Chloë’s back, then another on the back of her neck. “Give Mummy a hug. Then we can go back to sleep. Then we can wake up with a nice appetite for Christmas dinner, hmm?”
Chloë allowed herself to be drawn into the hug. She allowed her hands to rest on the soft material of Ursula’s nighty, the warmth of her skinny body coming through.
She allowed the beads and necklaces around Ursula’s neck to press against her own neck.
“It’s okay, honey,” Ursula said, tapping Chloë’s head. “It’s okay.”
Chloë gulped. She knew what she had to do now. She knew she had to try.
“Sorry, Mummy,” she said.
Ursula squeezed even tighter. “It’s okay, my darling. You don’t worry. You don’t worry.”
Chloë took a deep breath. Wished she was anywhere else but here.
But she wasn’t, and she knew what she had to do.
“We’ll be fine now. Fine for Christmas. Fine forever.”
Please let this be the right thing to do, Mum. Please let this not make me a bad person.
“It’s—”
Chloë grasped at the metal necklace, stuck her fingers under the leather beads and the chain of keys.
She twisted her hands around them.
And she pulled.
Ursula pushed Chloë away right, but Chloë held on. Pushing Chloë away only helped because now Ursula was away from Chloë and Chloë was leaning over her and twisting the necklaces and the beads even tighter, twisting them around Ursula’s neck.
Ursula tried to speak. She tried to speak but it only came out as gasps. She hit at Chloë, made her face and her arms sting with her sharp nails, scratched at her face and her eyes and everywhere, but Chloë held on as Ursula gasped and retched and choked.
Spit dribbled down Ursula’s chin. Her face was going purpler and purpler, like it was a balloon and it was going to pop. The whites of her eyes were getting watery, tearful, bloodshot, and then there were no whites, just reds.
A few of the beads snapped in Chloë’s hand as Ursula smacked her right hand across her face, knocking her dizzy.
Chloë felt herself tumble away. Felt herself roll onto her side, head spinning, disoriented.
But she still kept hold of some metal chains. Twisted them even further. Pulled them even harder.
Ursula lifted herself on top of Chloë now, stuck her nails right into her arms, bit into her fingers.
Chloë wanted to let go. Everything in Chloë’s mind told her to let go, as Ursula scrambled around for Chloë’s hair now. Chloë actually heard and felt her yank a clump of hair from her
head, the sound like velcro coming apart.
And still she held on.
And then Ursula brought her quivering hands onto Chloë’s face. Pressed her knuckles against Chloë’s eyes, which made everything black and purple and really achey.
But she could feel Ursula’s thumb knuckles shaking, going weak. She shook her head, brushed them aside, kept on pulling and twisting on those chains, her knuckles sore from holding on.
When Ursula’s knuckles slipped away from Chloë’s cheeks, her body tumbled down on top of Chloë. She was shaking now. Shaking like a fish out of water, no real power left in her body. Saliva dribbled down her face—saliva with red, bloody bits, all onto Chloë’s fresh white nighty.
Her eyes were so bulging and red that Chloë couldn’t even see the blacks of the pupils anymore. And her face was so purple and veiny that she looked more like a random monster than Ursula.
Please let this be the okay thing to do, Mum. Please.
Chloë waited until Ursula had stopped moving completely, still twisting and holding those necklaces tightly.
She waited until Ursula let out a croaky gasp, then tightened and twisted some more.
She waited there, on the dark, hardwood floor of the bedroom, Ursula sprawled out on top of her, until Ursula went heavy—went completely heavy.
And she waited even longer, just so she couldn’t get back up, still tightening and tightening.
Then she yanked the keys off Ursula’s neck, yanked her mum’s necklace off Ursula’s neck, and she walked over to the wooden door of the bedroom, shaking all over.
She gripped her mum’s necklace.
“I’m back with you now, Mum,” she said, squeezing it. “I’m back now.”
Chapter Eight: Pedro
Pedro stared at Elaine. She clutched her baby tightly to her chest, its body and face hidden underneath the dirty blue towel.
“It’s—it’s what?” Barry said.
Tears ran down Elaine’s cheeks. Pedro could still hear sounds in the distance and was freezing as hell, but all of those senses were dulled by Elaine’s second revelation.
Her baby was bitten.
“He just—my John. He—he didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” Elaine said. She looked at Pedro, at Tamara, at Barry and at Josh, like this was some kind of army interrogation or something. “He—please. Please don’t take my John away.”
Pedro brought his hand against his greasy bald head. Barry covered his face with his hands. Tamara inched away from Elaine slightly, inched away from the filthy blue towel.
“You know what this means,” Barry said, his voice shaky. “We can’t…we can’t take her in. We can’t take either of them in.” He spoke as if Elaine and John weren’t even there.
“You can’t say that yet, bruv,” Pedro said. Although he wasn’t sure what to suggest himself. Signing up for this leadership thing, it was a fucking ballache. “We…Elaine isn’t bit. And it’s—”
“That baby is going to grow up and it’s going to grow teeth and it’s going to bite us the first chance it gets,” Barry barked. Pedro wished he’d shut the hell up. He was just starting to come around to this fella too. “We can’t let it come with us.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Tamara asked, holding a hand on Elaine’s shoulder. Elaine was silent through this whole exchange. She just held little John tightly. The way her eyes fluttered open and closed though, she didn’t look completely conscious. “My John,” she kept on repeating. “My John.”
“I’m suggesting we do the right thing here. Do the difficult thing.”
Tamara frowned. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“Like I said,” Barry barked again. “Let the baby come with us, it’ll kill us the first chance it gets. And weeping mum over there hardly looks like she wants to let her kid go, so what choice do we have? We’ve got Josh. We’ve got bigger things at hand.”
Tamara stormed to her feet. She squared up to Barry. Held Josh’s hand tightly. “You’re suggesting we kill a baby.”
“No!” Barry said. He messed around with the tight collar of his white shirt. “No—I just don’t think we have much choice if the mother won’t come with us. And we can’t stay behind. Every second we stay behind we put Josh under more risk. We put the chance of—of finding a cure under more risk. A cure to save people like this woman’s kid—”
“And what’s to say ‘this woman’s kid’ isn’t special too? What’s to say there aren’t more like Josh?”
Barry waved a hand in Tamara’s face, like he was wafting an annoying fly away. “All I’m saying is we’d better make a decision pretty damn quick because we’re stood out in the pissing cold, the pissing dark, and I’m not going to stand here much longer. In fact, fuck it. I’m going back inside. Josh, come with—”
Tamara cracked a slap around Barry’s fat face. It brought him to a complete silence, a red mark growing on his chubby cheek. For a split second, Pedro wanted to applaud Tamara, but he wasn’t sure she’d made a good move. They needed to stay together.
They needed to decide what to do.
“Don’t ever reach a hand out to my son. Don’t ever—ever—pretend to know what’s best for him. Because you don’t. No one does. No one but me. He isn’t a toy. He isn’t something for you to protect. He’s my son.”
She pulled Josh away from the scene of the argument, walked to the back of the green Mercedes, and climbed inside.
“Knock when you want to come back in,” Tamara said. “I’m not being a part of this madness.”
The door to the van clicked shut, and Pedro and Barry were alone with Elaine and baby John.
For a time, they were all just silent. Elaine kept her sole focus on her baby, who she rubbed her spidery hands against as he lay under that towel. She seemed oblivious to Pedro and Barry’s presence, now. Oblivious to the argument—the debate—that had just occurred.
“Barry’s right, Elaine,” Pedro said. But it pained him to say it. Ripped him apart inside.
As Pedro took a step closer to Elaine, Barry looked at Pedro with amazement.
Pedro crouched down beside her. Placed a hand on her shoulder. She flinched at this. Flinched and gasped. But then she let him keep it there.
“Your John, he’s…I’m so sorry Elaine, but that kid’s been bitten. He’s…You’ve seen the goons—the monsters on the road. The zombies. You’ve…” Every word was a struggle. He had to keep turning away from Elaine’s inquisitive eyes. “He’s gonna turn. He’s gonna…he’s gonna go to sleep and he’s gonna come back as one of them. If he hasn’t already. And…and that’s no life. No life at all for anyone. When was he…when did it happen, Elaine?”
Elaine stared at Pedro with bloodshot eyes. She stroked the body of her still baby, as if she was trying to comprehend, trying to connect with what Pedro was saying. “He…the bite. It happened—happened just before the sun set. When the—when the men with hats over their faces chased me.”
Pedro felt a sickness grow inside. The men with hats over their faces. Dan and his fucking clan of wooly-hat-faced pricks. They’d caused this. They’d made this happen. He didn’t regret ploughing that wrench into his head one bit.
“Elaine, I…I know this is hard. I know this is hard for you. But I’d like to see John, if that’s okay? See him and—and don’t worry, you can keep on holding on to him. But I’d like to see him. Like to see how he’s getting on.”
Elaine brought John closer to her chest. Tears trickled down her face, congealing with the snot around her nostrils.
“Let’s just have a look at him, Elaine. Just a look to see how he’s doing. Because…because we might be able to take him somewhere. We might be able to take him somewhere safe. Somewhere—somewhere where we can help him.”
Elaine mumbled. Rolled her chapped, purple lips together. “Somewhere safe,” she said. “Som
ewhere safe.”
“Yes,” Pedro said, smiling and nodding. “Somewhere safe. But only if I can have a look. Only if I can see him.”
They spent a few moments staring one another in the eyes. In her brown eyes, lit up by moonlight, Pedro could see an understanding. A trust.
“Somewhere safe,” she said. A trusting smile flickered at the edges of her mouth.
“Yeah,” Pedro said.
Elaine sniffed up. She lifted John from her chest, handed the blue bundle over towards Pedro.
Pedro’s muscles stiffened when she did this. He wasn’t expecting an act so trusting. Definitely wasn’t expecting to hold the damn baby. But here he was. Here he was, kneeling on the motorway, holding this cold bundle.
He had to pull back the blue towel. He had to look.
He grabbed the towel. Grabbed it, but already his stomach was sinking. The kid was so cold in his arms. So still, so rigid. Smelly.
He felt his pulse pounding in his temples as he pulled away the towel. Felt his breath holding, all by itself.
And then he saw John.
He was older than Pedro had been expecting. Older, full head of ginger hair, freckles across his face.
He had a huge bite mark in the side of his neck. His pale-skinned neck.
And he had little milk teeth.
But he was still. He was gone. And soon, he would be awake again.
He gathered his thoughts. Tried to stop his hands from shaking. “Elaine, I—I’m sorry but—”
A huge bang rattled in Pedro’s right ear. He heard something splitting, felt cold fluid splatter over his face. The bang was so loud it made him dizzy, made his vision fuzzy, but he couldn’t understand.
Then he heard a woman’s scream.
“My baby! My John! My baby!”
Elaine threw herself at John. Dragged the towel out of Pedro’s arm, squeezed herself against it. Pedro still didn’t understand what had happened, but he knew the blue towel had gone red. He knew that red was transferring onto Elaine’s checkered shirt, dripping onto the concrete.
He turned around. Turned around in the direction of where the bang had come from.