by Jack Lewis
The thought was so ridiculous I would have laughed were it not for the anger that rose in my chest.
“So you think a couple of hundred of you are going to survive in the Wilds?” I said. “The stalkers will pick you off. A few at a time at first, so you might not notice them going missing. But before long it’ll be fifty, and you’ll start to wonder how the hell you’re going to get through the nights.”
My face burnt red and my head throbbed, but I couldn’t stop.
“Just when you get a watch system figured out, more stalkers will come. They’ll move their nests closer because they know you’re near. They smell you. They taste you in the air. They’re faster and stronger than you, and their teeth will tear through your skin.”
Some of the red drained from Moe’s face, leaving his skin white.
I carried on. “Then whatever the stalkers leave behind, the infected will finish.”
“So how come they don’t come near Vasey?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. Maybe it’s the walls, I don’t know.”
Somewhere behind us in town, a door slammed. The sky was darkening, the last channels of sunlight drying up. Moe stared at Sam’s body for a few seconds, his eyes deep in thought. Then he turned his head to me.
“You know a lot about surviving,” he said, “but you don’t know a damn thing about living.”
He walked over to Sam and covered him up again. “You say you’re planning for the future of these people, but you’re not prepared to make the hard choices that a leader’s gotta make. This poor sod here proves that,” he said, and pointed at the bedsheet.
I didn’t say anything. There was no use persuading Moe right now, he was too stubborn for that. If I was going to change anyone’s mind, it would have to be the rest of the people at the town meeting.
Moe wiped his nose, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and started to walk away. He took a few steps, then looked back.
“Leaders gotta sacrifice a part of themselves, Kyle. And I don’t think you got it in you.”
5
The Barbara Shaun Theatre had once been home to amateur productions of King Lear, Jesus Christ Superstar and Richard III, but in 2031 it hosted town meetings of Vasey, the biggest known survivor colony in the North West of England. We discussed things like where to bury bodies once the Romero Street cemetery got full, and what we were going to do with sewage to avoid us all catching cholera.
I stood on the stage feeling like Macbeth, watching all my power slip away. In front of me, set a few feet lower than the stage, rows of chairs ran all the way back to the entrance. They were made from claret-coloured material and most had rips and puncture wounds with the stuffing hanging out like guts. Before the outbreak the theatre had been long overdue refurbishment, and the local amdram society had put aside profits from their productions to meet the funding they needed. The theatre would never see a facelift now.
Townspeople drifted in and the seats filled. A quiet chatter grew to a murmur, and soon the whole theatre droned like a beehive. I scanned the crowd for familiar faces that I could count on for support. A few smiled back at me, but most averted their eyes.
Dan sat by himself near the back and didn’t speak to anyone. Every so often he lifted a quarter bottle of whiskey to his lips and took a sip. Where had he gotten that? Did he have a secret stash?
Faizel was two rows behind him. He had his little boy on his lap, and his wife, Sana, sat next to him. They held hands and smiled at each other. The contrast between Faizel and Dan was remarkable. They both worked for Moe as scouts and often spent weeks together in the Wilds, but they could not have been any more different.
I looked around the room for Justin, but his curly hair and lanky body were missing. Surely he wouldn’t let me down tonight. He must have known how important this meeting was and how much I needed his support. I didn’t know what was going on with him lately, but he’d be here.
Soon the theatre was so full that I couldn’t see the red backs of any of the chairs. A side door opened across the stage and Moe walked in. He gave me a nod, swung a wave to the crowd and then took a seat. There were two chairs set on stage - one for me, one for Moe. It felt like an electoral debate.
I sat across from Moe. Gradually more faces in the crowd looked up, saw their two most influential people sat down and ready to address them. The buzz died down.
I took a deep breath. My pulse hammered, and my stomach felt light as though gravity had been shut off and the contents were going to fly up my throat. I’d never gotten used to talking to so many people.
I had to start off strongly. It was important that I was confident and that I put weight behind my arguments. I had to persuade the people to trust in me and stay in Vasey.
Moe shifted in his seat. I stood up before he got chance and addressed the crowd.
“Quiet please people.”
My words echoed up to the rafters, the acoustics of the theatre designed to carry the volume of voice from the stage and send it into each corner of the building.
Voices stopped, faces turned. All eyes were on me and Moe. I bit down on the nerves that fired inside me.
“We all know why we’re here,” I said.
I took a few steps to the front of the stage, the thuds of my footsteps hammering on the boards.
“This isn’t an ordinary meeting. We’ve got something important to discuss. And I do mean discuss. This isn’t me telling you that you have to do something, there are no orders. Everyone’s opinion is welcome.”
At the back of the room the theatre door opened. I hoped it was Justin coming to take his empty seat, but it was a woman. She ducked her head down and shifted across a row, apologising to everyone who had to move out of her way while she found her seat. I nodded to Moe.
He stood up and cleared his throat.
“Been a long time since an old fella like me was up here,” he said. “Last time was probably when I played the skull in Hamlet.”
He grinned, and a few laughs rose from the crowd.
My busted leg ached. I could stand on it less and less these days, as though the onset of winter was making my bones creak. I didn’t feel like a man in his forties; I was ancient. I grabbed my chair and pulled it toward the edge of the stage. I sat down and tried to slow the rushing of my blood. Come on, Kyle. Be confident. Persuade them.
“We’ve all got a choice to make today,” I said, trying to send my voice booming across the hall. “You all know the question, and you know your options.”
Silence. Usually, people chatted with each other while I talked on stage. They laughed with friends, made jokes. Today was different.
I carried on. “You know how I feel. You know what I think of Vasey and our future. The plans we’ve got. The things we need to do to build a life here.”
To my right, Moe stood up. He dragged his chair across the stage, cutting my words with the scrape of the metal legs on the wooden boards.
“And you folks know how I feel too. Supplies are running out. All we do is work. We’re surviving, but we ain’t living,” he said.
A few murmurs in the crowd. Some heads nodded in agreement. I tried to think of the names of the people agreeing, but came up blank. Maybe I didn’t know these people as well as I thought.
“Is it true?” a man shouted in a scratchy voice. It was an Irish guy in his thirties who hardly ever spoke. He did the job I gave him on the fields, but never with a smile. I thought his name might have been Martin. “Is what he said about the infected true?”
This was what everyone wanted to know. This was why the meeting had the biggest attendance I’d ever seen. Harlowe had spilled his secret on the square, that half a million infected were all headed in our direction. Word had spread like thrush, and soon everyone panicked. They wanted answers today. And I had none.
Moe put his hand on his chest. He straightened his posture. “I’ve made it no secret that I’m leaving Vasey. And I know Kyle is going to do his level best to convince you all
to stay. But here’s what I suggest. That we don’t listen. We don’t debate, we don’t talk. We’ve done enough of that.”
He let a few seconds of silence pass to emphasise his points. Heads in the crowd nodded. Then he spoke again.
“We’ve had enough tongue wagging. I say we end this right here right now and put it to the vote.”
At first a few murmurs in the crowd. Then a man shouted out.
“You’re bloody right!”
Heads nodded and murmurs of agreement trickled through the rows of people.
Moe had blindsided me. He knew I wanted to talk this through and rationalise it. He probably knew that I had a point, so he’d gotten in there first and suggested the vote, because he knew people had short attention spans. A yes or no vote; leave or stay. Without the chance to explain my reasons for staying or to tell them that I didn’t think the wave of infected existed, it was a vote I was sure to lose.
A grin twisted at the corners of Moe’s lips as the din around us rose. I gripped the arms of my chairs, did my best to hold the anger in. It would have been sweet to stand up and smack him in the face, but if I acted rashly now, I’d lose every single one of these people.
Moe stood up.
“You all heard Harlowe yesterday. He was a thief. Scum. A man who deserved to die a thousand times over. But in his last few seconds of life, he didn’t beg for mercy. He didn’t try to persuade us to spare him, or curse God for putting him in this mess. Instead, he spoke the truth.”
I bolted to my feet and winced as I put my weight on my bad leg. “Hang on a minute. You’re saying that you believe him? The man who tried to steal from us not once, but twice? The guy who killed Sam?”
Moe gave a knowing smile, as though I’d walked right into his trap. He spoke loudly, the twang of his Lancastrian accent amplified by the acoustics.
“And whose fault is it that he killed Sam? Who gave him that chance?”
My chest dropped and a fuzzy feeling ran though my arms and legs. The faces in the crowd turned from nodding agreement at Moe’s words, to flinches of anger when they looked at me.
They all knew that I’d shown mercy. Moe had made sure that every damn person was aware that I had gone against the town law and spared Harlowe’s life, and that by doing so I’d given him the chance to come back and kill Sam. I was sure that he hadn’t meant to kill him, but that didn’t mean shit. A man was dead, and they blamed me.
My coffers of confidence were empty, and the people of Vasey didn’t have enough respect for me to let me draw some on credit.
Moe puffed up his chest, his arms at his hips.
“Harlowe told the truth, ladies and gentlemen. When men think they got a chance at life, they lie. But Harlowe knew he was a dead man. And in his final words, he warned us of what’s coming. Five hundred thousand of the fuckers heading our way. They will kill every single one of you.”
The silence broke. Faces flashed with panic. People started hurried conversations with the people next to them; their husbands, wives, friends. Every so often one of them would spin a look at me, but there was nothing friendly in it.
I needed to do something. I needed support from somewhere, but looking at the crowed, there was none coming. Who was going to help me?
Dan? No, he was Moe’s man.
Faizel? I didn’t think he’d tied himself to Moe despite working for him, but he wasn’t my friend either.
Justin? He was loyal, but I didn’t know where the hell he was.
This was down to me. I wasn’t an orator, and I damn sure wasn’t a salesman. But I had to do my best. I had to sell them the dream, get them to believe in what we were doing here. Vasey was our only shot at building a life for the survivors, and if we left it, then I didn’t see any hope.
I tightened my fists until the blood drained out of them. Took a deep breath and held it in.
“Do you all want to die?” I said, my voice springing out against the timber of the roof.
The murmurs dropped.
“Because the second you walk out of these walls, that’s what’s going to happen. I’ve been out there. How many of you have been in the Wilds for more than an hour?”
Two hands rose. One was Dan’s, the other was Faizel’s.
“You’ve lived here too long. You've been safe so long that you've forgotten what danger is. Out there, there are no walls keeping the infected away from you. The second you let your guard down, they’ll tear you to pieces.”
Moe laughed. “He just loves to play the bogey man. Truth is, ladies and gents, it ain’t as bad out there as you think. Could a few infected really kill all two hundred of us?”
The amusement dropped off his face. “Enough of this shit. Let’s vote. I’m heading out in two weeks. I’m going somewhere where the whiskey flows, there’s enough smokes and there aren’t five hundred thousand dead bastards marching toward us. If you’re with me, raise a hand.”
I wanted to speak, to put my argument across one last time. Hands rose in the air. First a few, but then more, like a Mexican wave that didn’t end. Soon I stared out at a room full of upturned palms.
Moe nodded. “Two weeks,” he said. “And then we go.”
6
Seats emptied and the theatre cleared, leaving behind the old oak roofing, torn chairs and a vast silence that echoed the slightest movement. Moe walked toward the exit behind the stage, his coat folded over his arm. Now that the people had gone, his posture sagged. The old man had kept it together for a short while, but now his age weighed down on him.
“Give me a minute,” I said.
He turned. The smirk of victory left his face and he sighed.
“It’s over, Kyle.”
My steps thudded on the bouncy treads, the decades-old wood creaking under me. I stopped just short of him.
I had lost the debate. Moe’s reasoning and his popularity had won out, and it seemed that most of the people were going to leave with him. The old man had played it smart; I thought he was going to use the ‘no alcohol, no fun’ card, but instead he’d brought up the wave of infected. He’d made them terrified of it.
I was never going to win them back with words, because persuasion wasn’t my strong point. So what was?
Survival. Since the outbreak fifteen years ago I’d seasoned myself to the horrors that waited in the Wilds. This is what I would use.
My chest loosened. “I’m going to go find it,” I said. “I’ll prove that this ‘wave’ is just bullshit.”
Moe put his hand to his chin. “Do you really believe that?”
I nodded. “There’s no way five hundred thousand of them would join together. They act on instinct, some sort of primal shit that I can’t work out. But they don’t decide to join together.”
“Take a look outside once in a while, Kyle. Nobody out there made a conscious decision to live together in Vasey; they just drifted here one by one. Maybe the infected aren’t much different.”
“If you think we’re the same as them, you’ve obviously never had one try to kill you,” I said.
He looked at the floor, gathered his words. “At any rate, I’m going with whoever wants to come with me. I imagine it will be a lot of them.”
I wasn’t going to let him do this. We’d worked too hard, sacrificed too much. Vasey had to work because if I didn’t, then I couldn’t see a way forward.
“I’m going to Manchester. I’ll prove that the wave doesn’t exist, and then I’m going to come back and rebuild this fucking town.”
A door burst open at the back of the theatre. Justin rushed down the hall, past the rows of empty seats. His face was red. He stopped at the stage, bent over. He took deep breaths.
He looked up at us. “I missed it?” he said.
Anger flashed though me. “What the hell do you think?”
“I’m sorry Kyle.”
Moe turned. “If you two can excuse me, I’m going. You’re serious about going to Manchester?”
I nodded. The thought of going back into the
Wilds turned my stomach to water, but I knew I had to do it.
“You’re doing what?” said Justin.
I ignored him. I couldn’t even look at him right now.
Moe scratched his chin. “If you’re really doing this, then I’m sending Dan and Faizel with you.”
Dan and Faizel were his scouts, his most loyal men. Why would he want them to come along?
As if reading my thoughts, he replied. “I don’t trust you, Kyle. You got this dream of Vasey, and I know you don’t want to give it up. The bug’s bit you so bad that even if you went there and saw the wave, I think you’d still come back and say you didn’t.”