My whole skin crawled and I felt a twinge in my own groin. I had the urge to grab it just to make sure it was still there. I straightened myself up on the bonnet, being careful not to make any noise.
‘Where was the guy who owned the store, Gerrard?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know’, Janet shrugged. ‘We assumed he had ran. I figured he just panicked too much and got away from the whole thing.’
I puffed out my cheeks and shook my head. I wasn’t sure what to say next.
‘I’ve got such a bad headache’ Janet said while rubbing her temples. ‘You don’t have any pain killers here do you? Or even some scotch?’
‘No, I don’t, unfortunately.’ I didn’t know if her second question had been a joke or not. ‘All I got is a tank of questionable water over there that I got to somehow boil in the morning if I don’t want to die of thirst. Well if we don’t.’
Janet scrunched her face as if sensing my awkwardness; she stood up and looked around the garage. ‘So what’s the sleeping situation like Eric?’
I cleared my throat before replying but my voice sounded as if it was breaking for the first time all over again. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean where have you been sleeping, and is there another place for me to sleep?’
‘Oh, right, sorry. Well there’s a bed out the back. You can have that. The mattress is a little bit lumpy but it’s not the worst. I’ll take the sofa it folds out into a bed.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s no problem. The sheets are a little musty but I…’
‘I don’t mean for the bed’, she cut me off. ‘Well I do mean for the bed, but also for opening the door also and saving my life.’
‘You’re welcome. I’m sure you would have done the same thing for me.’
There was another long silence after that, and for a moment, Janet looked beautiful in the moonlight. I felt terrible for thinking such things, and slid off the bonnet. ‘I’ll show you where the bed is, follow me.’
I was tempted to ask her why she and her friend had fled the camping store, or ask more about her own background. But I figured all of that could wait until the morning. There had been enough tales of woe for one night. And Janet looked as tired as I felt.
When I showed her to the bed she bounced on it a couple of times.
‘Not bad’, she said smiling. ‘I left my axe out on the garage floor. You’re not going to use it on me when I fall asleep, and eat my protein bars now are you?’
‘Well I won’t chop you up and eat your bars if you promise not to chop me up and drink all of my funky water.’
‘It’s a deal’ she said sticking her thumb up at me.
I turned to leave, feeling oddly guilty once again.
‘Eric? Can I ask you one more thing?’
I spun on my heels. ‘Sure.’
‘What’s getting you through all of this?’
‘Hope.’ I replied without hesitation. I had a crazy notion that I was the last person left in all of this but meeting you and hearing how your survived leads me to believe that there are more survivors.’
I then bid her goodnight. I went and crashed out onto the sofa. I didn’t bother pulling the bed out. My bones felt as heavy as my eyes and, when I closed them my mind began to race with a thousand thoughts. Every time I thought of Janet my stomach knotted and I felt guilty. Even though I hadn’t done anything wrong it still felt like I had. It felt as though I was being dishonest to Lauren.
I went to sleep wishing that when I opened my eyes again I would still have my hope, and that the night would be gone.
Chapter 13
When I awoke Janet was already up and moving around out in the garage. She was standing at one of the workbenches with her back to me looking busy. When she heard my approach she turned and greeted me with a smile.
‘Morning’, she said. She looked and sounded like a completely different girl from the one I had met the night before.
I mumbled out a reply and went to her at the bench. I wiped the last dregs of sleep from my eyes and inspected what she was doing. I smiled when I saw that she was boiling up some water exactly the same way I had planned to. She had even found a large stainless steel pot to brew it in.
‘Impressive’ I said.
She nodded. ‘That batch is for drinking. I’ll boil some more for washing in a little while too. I’ve got some carbolic soap if you want to use it. It’s a bit strong but it does the job.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that I smell?’
‘Yep, I sure am. You smell worse than those guys out there.’ She looked at me and frowned. ‘Rough night?’
‘Very. That sofa is a lot worse than the lumpy mattress. I couldn’t get comfortable at all. Then when I did sleep I kept having crazy dreams.’
‘Crazier than what’s going on outside?’
‘Worse’, I sighed. ‘I dreamt that some strange girl was in my garage stealing all my water before trying to make off in my BMW.’
Janet smiled and nodded her head towards a trestle that she had jacked up to look like a table.
‘Well, if you are going to be stingy about your water then you can’t have any of my stuff.’
I went over to the trestle and inspected the goods on top of it. There were four large protein bars laid out side by side, 5 packets of cappuccino, a small container of artificial sweetener, and a stainless steel flask that looked like a gigantic silver bullet.
‘I take it all back.’ I said.
‘I had a feeling you would dude.’ She came and stood beside me. ‘There’s already a batch of coffee in the flask. We can share a protein bar, but that’s all that I have left, and by the looks of this place you haven’t got much either.’
I looked her in the eye and thanked her. She looked even better in daylight.
‘It’s the least that I could do Eric after what you did for me last night.’ Janet sat down on the same seat she had the night before while I went into the office hut and grabbed a chair. When I returned she had split a protein bar for us, and was pouring out the coffee.
‘I know that cappuccino is supposed to be served with milk but this is Armageddon style,’ she said winking at me.
‘It’s one hundred per cent better than nothing’, I replied
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Janet said as she raised her cup up in front of me.
I did the same and we touched our containers together. I sipped the steaming cappuccino and then tucked into the bar. Both of them tasted like the best things I had ever eaten. As we drank our coffee Janet’s eyes roamed the garage and then back to the trestle over and over. I could tell that she was thinking the same thing that I was about the food.
The bars weren’t going to last us very long, no matter how well we rationed. I could have eaten the whole lot of them myself there and then.
‘So why exactly did you leave the camping store?’ I asked.
She swallowed the last piece of her bar before answering me. ‘The night after everybody was killed myself and Suzanne were still pretty much on edge over everything that had happened. We could still hear the zombies moving around outside at the back door, so we decided to sleep in shifts.’
Janet paused while she refilled on coffee. She offered the flask to me but I shook my head.
‘It was Suzanne’s turn to watch. I was having such a restless sleep. I kept going in and out, plus I was having my own crazy dreams too. I wasn’t asleep long before Suzanne was shaking me awake and screaming.’
Tears began to well up in Janet’s eyes and I could tell that reliving the story was painful for her. I felt bad for making her tell me, but I still wanted to know.
‘I’m sorry Janet. I shouldn’t have asked. If it’s too hard you don’t have to talk about it.’ I was being sincere but I still hoped that she would tell me.
‘It’s fine,’ she replied. ‘I asked you everything last night. It’s only fair.’
I watched her wipe away tears and then compose herself before speaking again.
‘The zombies were trying to bash their way in through the back door. The door itself was wooden, but it had a light steel plate on the outside to make it look as if it was a lot stronger than it actually was. But it was as if they knew that. They had somehow managed to pull most of the plate away from the frame, and they were bashing the wood in.’
‘Holy shit’ I muttered.
‘That’s what I thought too Eric! I mean I thought once you became a zombie your brain died and you shuffled around at one mile an hour. I mean I’ve seen some slow ones. Really slow. But then some of the others move just as fast as we do. And it’s like they’re…still intelligent and they know what’s going on around them. Which leads me to believe that they are something else? Hybrids or whatever.’ Janet snorted at the absurdity of her observations.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘myself and Suzanne decided to make a run for it before they busted in on us. So we just took off after we grabbed a few things that were closest to us. We ran through the streets looking for somewhere safe where we could hide out and rest up. But there was nowhere really, the carnage out there is unbelievable Eric. We kept going until we got to here. And well, you know the rest. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you Eric, or at the very best I’d still be on the run out there.’
‘You know I think you’re right on the money’ I said to her as I inched forward in my chair and put my coffee on the trestle.
‘About the zombies,’ I went on. ‘Everything you said about how some of them move better than others, and how some of them seem to have more of a brain than the rest. I’ve seen all of that myself. Some are bad, and then others really bad. But…’
The sound of thunder rumbling in the sky outside broke my speech. Both of us turned to the high window as the thick black clouds gave birth to a heavy rain that began to batter the glass. The downfall outside sounded refreshing.
‘Well?’ Janet probed. ‘You were saying?
I scratched the hair on my face and tried to remember where I had left off.
‘Oh yeah’ I replied while wrapping my knuckles against my temple. Even though the things look so messed up, they can still tell the difference between them and us. But it’s the rats that really puzzle me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean in some ways I think they look worse than the zombies. The sheer size of them and their tails makes me gag. It looks like they mutated into some giant rodent, but they don’t look dead, and the zombies don’t seem to turn on them, or even on each other for that matter. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. They all work together like some fucked up team.’
I apologised to Janet right away for cursing. She waved me off and laughed.
After a brief silence she took a turn speaking.
‘The one thought that keeps going around my head is just how fast everything happened. It’s as though we were wiped out before we even had a chance to put up any sort of a fight. The last news I heard was that the virus had spread throughout Europe and even the US. If that’s true then I would have thought that the virus was airborne, but then if it was we would all have it right? I mean we all breath the same air. Don’t get me wrong I’m beyond glad I don’t have it, but I am puzzled as to why some of us are immune. But none are to a bite.’
I nodded a silent reply. Janet’s thinking was on the same plane as my own. If it had spread globally I was hoping that one of the bigger and better equipped countries had contained it. Or at least gotten things somewhat under control.
I wanted to ask her weather she had anyone special in her life that she had lost, thought may still be living, where she came from, and so much more. But I felt that I shouldn’t. If there was, I assumed that she would have mentioned them by now.
Instead, it was Janet who asked me a question.
‘So do you want to wait for the rain to ease off before we head out?’
Her words filled made me queasy. My throat became dry, and I had to swallow a couple of times before replying.
‘I… guess so’. I said without looking at her.
‘I feel the same way about going back outside as you do Eric, believe me. But it’s something we have to do. You have to take another chance on finding out about Lauren. And we need to get supplies too.’
Janet was right about it all. Even if it meant me driving around the streets in the car looking for something – anything that might help. I needed to be out there on Lauren’s trail. If there was one! And we needed food to fuel our searches.
‘How well stocked was the camping store when you left it?’
‘Pretty decent actually. Plenty of water and survival gear, and a shitload of bars. But when we left we busted out the front door. So there’s a chance it could have been looted by somebody. Or contaminated by the dead if they had managed to get in through the back, and I’d be pretty sure that they did.’
I bit my bottom lip and thought things over. Now was probably the best time to take the car. Running around with weapons and having to be on guard constantly was more draining than I imagined. And if we were going to stock up on supplies, then the car was the only option. It would draw a lot more attention, but if we stuck to clear roads, and didn’t hang around for too long, we might be ok.
Janet and I laid out the best plan we could think of. When we were done, we went over it again so that we were both clear on it. My main concern had been opening the front doors and getting the car outside without attracting any attention. Janet was going to open the doors when we thought the coast was clear. Then we were going to push the car outside and start it up once I had locked up. If we were lucky enough to make it back, I’d worry about getting back inside when that time came. If things were to go wrong when we first got out front, we would ditch the car and try make it back into the garage through the back door.
We had agreed to go as soon as we were ready. Janet had said there was no real point in waiting around for the rain to stop, and that the streets would be just as dangerous wet or dry. I had agreed with her and excused myself to wash up, while she prepared things for our trip.
As I shaved with an ancient disposable razor, my thoughts returned to Lauren. I knew the risk I was taking going back outside was a huge one. And I knew Janet had to be thinking the same. The odds of us finding any information out there about Lauren’s whereabouts weren’t good. There wasn’t going to be any neon signs lighting up and pointing me in her direction. Even the notion of getting back here with a trunk full of supplies felt insane!
The streets were filled with the worst horror imaginable, and anybody still out there must have adopted the mantle of every man or woman for themselves. And who could blame them? Shit I was the same. We could easily get car jacked by the desperate living as well as the merciless dead.
But I did save Janet. And it was just like I had told her – hope was the only thing that was keeping me going. The belief that there was at least somebody still out there who could help me – us.
‘Hey Eric come have a look at this.’ Janet’s voice asked me from somewhere over my shoulder.
I grimaced at my face in the mirror. I had managed to nick myself a lot with the razor without really noticing. But the cuts weren’t too bad, and I did look a little cleaner. I shrugged my shoulders, and went out to Janet. She was looking out the window in the living quarters.
‘What’s up?’ I asked right before a long boom of thunder erupted in the sky.
‘See for yourself.’ Her reply was far off, and she kept looking outside.
I went to her side and looked out the window. The streets were deserted, but the ankle high river of red rainwater flowing down the road made my skin crawl more than the sight of any zombie or rat that I had encountered so far.
Chapter 14
Moving the car had been more nerve racking than I had anticipated. I had gone against my better judgment and turned the engine over while we were still inside the garage. I knew of course that the car had to be checked before we went anywhere, but I feared that the
noise would attract the dead back out to the front and scupper our plans of going anywhere before we had the chance. But luckily it hadn’t. The car was in tip top shape, and had a full tank of gas. I killed the engine after my check and gave Janet the ok sign with my thumb.
Janet was going to step outside and keep watch on the street while I pushed the car out onto the road. If we made it that far, then the rest was simple – we’d lock up, start the car, and be on our way. I had moved countless cars in and out of the workshop over the years; some back in the days before I could even drive properly, or had my licence. The bosses would toss me the keys, and tell me to just put it outside somewhere out of the way. I always did it, even though I’d be shitting myself. Doing it this time brought all those old feelings back to me.
But instead of worrying about damaging a car, I had to keep a lookout for zombies. I gave another signal to Janet, and then she opened the small front door first and looked outside. A couple of seconds later she pulled her head back inside and began to open the big doors. I took a deep breath, leaned one arm into the car, and put my sweating hand on the steering wheel. I then planted my shoulder into the corner frame of the driver’s side door and pushed. The car moved slowly, yet smoothly under my pressing. I inched towards Janet who was standing in the middle of the open doors on the outside looking nervously up and down the street, and then to me every few seconds. I could see that her clothes were already soaked through the beating rain.
I rolled the car through the doorway while Janet took a baby step backwards every time I took one forwards. When I made it all the way outside, I leaned in and pulled up the handbrake. Janet climbed in the passenger side while I went to lock the garage doors. I wanted Janet to start the car and have it running while I locked up. But she couldn’t drive, and the gentleman in me didn’t want her locking the doors while I sat inside the car, despite her protests.
I locked the big doors first from the inside, and then stepped back outside to lock the small door. I looked all around me before I slid the key into the lock and turned it with trembling hands. The action only took a couple of seconds, but I knew that was all the dead needed to creep up on me. I wouldn’t have heard them coming either with the sound of the rain and flowing water all around me.
The Dust: The Zombie Apocalypse in Ireland Page 6