“Should’ve just killed him,” said Greg. “Save the hassle.” He was sat on a rusted stool, chewing at a piece of grass.
Bessie with the long brown hair had a freckled complexion in the sunlight, and she stood with the third woman, Elyse. They were twins, though Elyse had more of an overbite. Both pretty. Both difficult to discern by scent alone, which I found to be an interesting anomaly. Bessie said; “We’re not animals.” Elyse had nothing to add to that, but Greg just waved it away.
Dale turned to me and asked; “We okay to leave our things here?”
I shrugged again. “Sure.”
“And your parents – do they know about this place?”
“They don’t know I come here. I can stay. Keep it safe.”
Adeline stepped up beside me. “I’ll keep her company.”
“Are there any weapons here?” asked Dale.
“No guns,” I replied.
Greg turned away, heading for the gate, saying; “Not ever needed ‘em. Let’s get a move on. Don’t feel safe without old Sampson.”
Adeline stayed with me while the rest of the group went back for their cache. It was an hour back to the farm from here, so I imagined we’d be here a while. “Do you move at night?” I asked.
“When we have to, dear. Nights are drawing shorter, though.” She reached into an inside jacket pocket and brought out a sheet of paper.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Do you know what day it is?”
I looked up to the sky, the sun peaking through between white, puffy clouds. “A warm day.” Starlings darted through the air, turning on a thought. I sat down in the shade of the doorway, leaning my back against the frame.
Adeline seemed to enjoy the sunshine, perching her rucksack against the frame of the greenhouse and laying out a blanket to sit on. “Wish it were warmer.” She opened up the sheet of paper and showed it to me. “Do you know what a calendar is?”
I dignified that with a scowl.
“Of course you do, of course you do. Well, today is a Wednesday. Back where we came from, they kept the clocks turning, so we always know what time and date it is. I think that’s important. Keeps us in check, yeah? Reminds us that we’re not the animals some of us think we are.” She brought out a pencil from her jacket. “Every day, I mark off another one. So far, we’ve been on the road almost six months.”
I wondered where they could have been for six months, and I wondered where they’d come from, but I didn’t ask. She’d make her own way round to it. She tucked the paper back inside her faded green denim jacket and brought out a woollen hat. A breeze picked up that cooled the air. Her black jeans were faded at the knees.
“Six months… seems like only yesterday we set out. My feet aren’t thankful, I can tell you that. What about you? You spent your whole life here?”
“Hereabouts,” I said, studying the rot in the frame opposite. Leave anything alone for long enough and the rot can set in.
“We’re from the south of England, a community in Cornwall living off a small island. Who needs fences when you have water?”
“Is there hunting?”
“Some,” she replied. “Small animals. Nothing big.” She gave me a smile, pleased to be able to engage. “You like hunting?”
“I like eating.”
“You sure you want to come with us then? Seems like you got all you need here. Food’s scarce on the trail.”
“Nest’s tainted.” The whole house smelled of them now. No way it would leave soon – it would take months of scenting and collecting the right shrubbery and flowers.
Adeline glanced to the roofline. “Nest. Yes.” She drank from a water bottle and then put it back away in her rucksack. “Well, Dale’s already said, I’m sure. But we’ll be heading up to north-east Wales, making a few stops. Heard of a few ‘nests’ that need purging. Will you help us?”
I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to say. I wasn’t sure if she was lacing her words with double-meaning. “Maybe.”
“It won’t be any time soon and it won’t be easy, but this country needs people like us to pull together and reclaim the land. We can’t settle until every last beast is purged. It’s all very well folks like your parents and folks like those back home settling up, living on the day-to-day. What kind of world are they passing on to their children? One filled with dangers? We thought we could out-wait them, that they would starve a true-death. Only they grew stronger. Smarter. And… well,” she looked me in the eyes then. Really looked at me. “There’s testing facilities out there that want samples. There’s one on Anglesey.” She stifled a laugh. “Some of us think it’s the military scientists still trying to perfect whatever they unleashed upon us. Or perhaps fix their mistake. Others think the beasts are experimented on, to try and figure out how to make us live forever. There’s all kinds of theories. What do you call them, by the way? Everyone has a different name.”
“Mutates.”
“As good as any. Better than zombies or zom-monsters or bad-humans. We need to dehumanise them, lest we remember they were once people, just like us.”
“Apexes.”
“What’s that, love?”
“The clever ones. Apexes.”
She nodded. “I like that. Comes with a natural pluralisation, Apexi, which is ironic considering these ‘apexi’ like to work together.”
“Coincidental,” I said.
She laughed, a little louder than I would have liked. Every one I’d been around had a natural quiet setting whenever they were somewhere vulnerable. Laughing so loudly like that was disconcerting. “I don’t know. The English teacher in me thinks that could be classified as ironic.”
“You should be quiet,” I said.
She startled a bit at that, and for a brief second fear passed over her face. Then uncertainty.
I pointed to nowhere in particular. “Speaking, even normally, is one thing. Laughter, especially loud laughter, is an invitation.”
“Sorry, you’re right.” She looked about, suddenly wary. “This place just seems like a safe place, you know?”
“That’ll be all the dead mutates.”
“Oh?”
I’m not sure if that made her feel more at ease or not, but I made my leave then. A few things I wanted to pack.
***
The sun was a couple hours from vanishing by the time we headed on. I suggested it might be best to stay now, but the others were keen to put more distance between us and the farm. Greg said he’d spotted my Father walking around with a shotgun, though no-one else had.
At least now everyone was armed, either with sawn-off double-barrelled shotguns or handguns. Easily mobile weapons. There was also a cache of rifles inside a holdall – it all seemed a little excessive actually, considering how sparsely they had arrived at the farm. Each carried at least two bags now, dressed in denim or leather scuffed by weather and tussles. I packed lightly. Jerky on my belt buckle. Knife in my holster. A rucksack with a water bottle and a change of clothes, empty bags for foraging, a few superhero comics because they were light, my own set of utensils and plate, a bottle of my urine, toothbrush, and a dried woodland wreath that I’d taken from my farmhouse bedroom. I’d had it since I could remember and it was full of memories. Every sniff reminded me of one thing or another; Dale rushing past my room to fight with Aled, Mother locking the door because I’d been walking around without any clothes on and refused to put any on, Father dropping a pile of books on the end of my bed.
We filed off across the field in single file, Dale leading with a shotgun dangling from a rigged backpack holster for easy access. He’d covered his head with a woollen hat so only the reddened skin around his eyes, nose and cheeks showed, the rest all beard. Bessie and Elyse followed, their hikers boots an ostentatious pink and purple. Everyone had a tube coming from one of their backpacks I noticed, for water on the go. Adeline was next, doubling up her leather jacket with a dark-blue, thin waterproof mac. Greg and John took the rear. John’s cough had s
ubsided with the nourishment and sleep and some meds taken from my home. His dark eyes still looked a little sunken. Another night wouldn’t have hurt for him, either. I could’ve found them something nicer to eat than old tinned soups and vegetables. Greg looked better too now that he wasn’t complaining of hunger all the time. He’d moved on to the weather. His thinning pate was tanned brown from the lack of wearing a hat, despite being the one most in need.
I was at the rear of the rear, heartrate more elevated than normal. This was it. I was finally leaving – properly leaving. Not a trip to the village or one of our neighbours. Somewhere new and distant. Somewhere without a view of a field. There’d be nature in the towns after all this time – maybe trees left to grow at their own will – but no fields. I tried to imagine long paved streets lined with brick buildings on both sides with concrete at my back and more bricks up ahead, and found it difficult with all this greenery around. How would it smell? What would it be like to be out of my comfort zone? Already I felt a heightened sense of danger. Would danger smell differently? It would be a whole new world.
Dale said they would do their best to avoid the larger towns, like Aber down by the sea, as only idiots and those with a death wish dared venture there. Mutate and apex numbers were too high, and the nooks and alleyways too many, he said, to make any scavenge worthwhile. Only reason to head into a town was to reclaim it, and only then with an army at your side. I’d nodded, feigning despondency. Maybe Aber wasn’t on our itinerary, but there were other towns on the map heading north, and how would they stop me if I decided to go AWOL? Why would they stop me?
***
“So have you been here before?” Dale had dropped back through the group to check on everyone. Finally, it was my turn.
We’d been walking about an hour and a half and the light was noticeably dimming. The hills had begun to rise and fall with greater peaks and troughs. Finding old public pathways became more important, as although overgrown, they were still more passable. And they generally lead somewhere interesting. I crested one turnstile with nettles biting at my boots, and answered: “We’re still within my territory. We haven’t gone far.”
“Does that mean we’re still relatively safe?”
“Whenever a mutate is downed, another normally takes its place.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted. “Any points of interest we should know about?”
“The Grapevine used to talk up here. Not so much since a couple winters back.”
“Grapevine?”
“Walkie-talkies.” I thought of Mother on hers, Father leering above, desperate for word of any sightings. In reality she was probably mourning too much for action; Father seeing red. Sorrow and anger; neither good bedfellows of the careful life needed to live for very long.
“Ah. Okay. Do you know where?”
“What do you normally do when it gets dark? Pitch tents?”
“Only in desperate times. You don’t to walk very long to stumble upon lodgings for the night, not in this country.”
We marched along the edge of a field sloping up towards a crest, the last light silhouetting trees along the brow against a dismal grey. Buttercups folded up for the night sprang underfoot, while early wild garlic grew in an adjacent woodland, the fragrance strong. Whenever my gut took a turn for the worse I fried up some of these green leaves, or chewed them raw. Made a great accompaniment to grouse and other wild birds too.
“Should come to a gravel road soon,” I said. “Turn up that. It’s where Old Jack lives – or used to.”
“Alright. Is there a plan B in case he’s there?”
“Not my problem,” I shrugged.
He looked a little exasperated – I had that affect on people it seemed. Everyone I’d ever met. He continued to give me a speech about how they’ve only stayed alive this long by playing the odds and by co-operating. Working together. “It’s life and death and while we’re in the wild there’s no time for horsing around. If you stick with us, you work with us. Not against us, okay?”
“Go left at the road instead of right. Whole bunch of cottages down there.” As my current plan involved sticking with the group, I bit my tongue and resisted telling him that I’d do what I wanted, on my terms, and there was nothing he could do to stop me eloping, or tracking them should I wanted.
He sped up to rejoin the front, while I foraged a little at the edge of the clearing. I had a straw bag that I filled with some nettles and some of that wild garlic. Then I spotted a cluster of mushrooms in some damp soil and added those, sniffing to check for contamination.
I caught up with them at the gravel road – a section of bramble had been hacked away to create an opening, and Greg stood akimbo with a machete at his side.
Dale looked at me, probably wanting to ask where I’d been. “Any reason we should go to Old Jack’s instead of the cottages down there?”
“If Old Jack’s dead, I haven’t scavenged it yet.”
“Did he call in often?”
“Often enough,” I said. I was curious to find out if he actually was dead. His wife and sons had been taken about four years back, and since then, his end of the vine had grown steadily quieter. Father had been planning to pay a visit once the days had drawn longer. Perhaps I should call in, I thought, put their minds at ease.
Greg watched me closely as we turned up the gravel road, as if he’d been reading my thoughts. The look on his face made me question if perhaps he had, and then a little pang of guilt swelled within, running the thought back. For a moment I’d forgotten about my brothers; that Mother and Father would have more on their mind than Old Jack.
Before Greg turned his gaze away, it flicked downwards, in the way my brother’s gazes sometimes did when they weren’t paying close attention. It was always funny how they would suddenly check themselves, remembering I was their sister – though not really – and perhaps not even all girl. Even if my chest betrayed that image. Not just my brothers either; almost anyone who came into contact with me, either our ‘guests’ or neighbours in the village. Youth was a rare commodity in survivors, it seemed – for obvious reasons. Maybe Greg hadn’t seen a sixteen year old girl in a while.
The twins were pretty though – much prettier than me. They caught me checking them out but I just smiled, figuring out they were probably in their thirties, so must’ve been about my age now when everything turned bad with the world. They looked innocent enough, and by that I meant they had no outward scars or bad demeanour, but they must’ve been through more than one hell to survive this long. Maybe they’d turned Greg down.
“Like what you see?” Elyse asked. She began to pant a little as the incline steepened. They all did. The heavy bags didn’t help.
Not wanting to cause any friction, I didn’t reply. Instead I looked down to my boots.
“How’d you move so fast, anyway?” asked Bessie.
“And why’d you kill your brothers instead of us?” added her sister.
Dale looked back over his shoulder. “Ladies.”
“What?” sparked Elyse.
“She had no gun that I could see,” John added. “There are questions to be answered here, like what she thought she could do to help her brothers.”
“And why she is suddenly with us.”
Adeline, who was lagging behind by a few feet, hurried to catch up with us. Through short breaths she said, “We’ve been over this, already. The important thing to remember is she helped us, not them. We don’t know what kind of things they made her do – whatever it was, it can’t have been good. She was probably just waiting for an opportunity to come along, and she took it.” She wrapped a sturdy, patchouli-scented arm around me and squeezed. “Let’s just make her feel welcome, yeah? Like she did with her – what did you call it, dear?”
“Home from home?”
“That’s right.” She gave me another squeeze, her patchouli scent re-emerging. She said she dabbed the essential oil on her garments to keep the bugs away. The look she gave each of the group would’ve
done the job just as well, I thought, for they all shut up for a while. When they did speak again, it was to complain of aches and sores and how life had become one permanent walking holiday, only there was no warm cabin and hot shower at the end of it.
I almost told them about Old Jack’s water-heating log burner, but didn’t want to get their hopes up.
The hedgerows on either side grew denser and taller, adding to the impending darkness. Laurel turned to privet vastly overgrown, and though this was at the edge of my territory, I didn’t sense danger. Apexi – thanks Adeline – were the ones to worry about, and even then I only had hearsay to go by. The mutate I’d faced in my home from home was the most developed I’d seen. Guests told stories of developed mutates and their intelligence, saying they moved from the countryside to areas of easy habitation, to roam and attack in packs.
Out here, I’d hear a mutate and its desperate hunger a mile away.
The road split and turned from loose dirt and gravel to hard-packed earth, with Old Jack’s place to the left, through a tunnel of darkness. Old Jack liked to keep his entrance obtuse, with nettles and brambles growing wild, yet even this was more than should be expected.
“You sure?” asked Dale.
I nodded and lead the way, breaking thorny brambles with my hands and ducking where necessary. I still wore my fingerless gloves, and felt the sting of the thorns trying to break the skin of my fingertips, to no avail. After a hundred or so metres we hit a wall of old corrugated scrap metal attached to the side of a car, and together, Dale and I rolled it aside into a hidden recess.
The corrugated wall surrounded the bungalow and turned it into a compound of sorts, with scrap metal and scrap appliances piled high against it, creating an immobile fortress about fifteen feet high. Barbed wire lined the top. Atop the scrap, Old Jack and his sons had erected a scaffold that went the entire way around, with a platform to patrol.
Sometimes I could forget the people attached to things; it was easy to say this was this and that was that; to see the pile of scrap with its dusting of cobwebs and forget the effort that hands had made to put it there. It was easier to dismiss the large efforts over the small efforts, like the bungalow itself for instance. A whole team of people had built that, but only a single pair, or perhaps two, had created this early warning device that I activated with my foot.
The Risen ( Part 2): The Risen, Part 2 Page 7