When I got in the car Janet looked at me and puffed out her cheeks. I took some deep breaths to calm myself and then smiled at her. We were both wet and afraid – but we had just had a little bit of success. We were safe on the inside while outside. I ran my hand through my dripping hair to slick it back and then put the key in the ignition. I looked up and down the streets one more time and then turned the key.
I expected the car not to start out here, or if it did I imagined the petrol tank being empty. I had the crazy thought that a huge rat had gotten under the engine and chewed its way through the fuel line. But it did turn over the first time, and the petrol gauge shot up to full once again.
‘Which way do you think is best?’ I asked Janet.
She looked in both directions and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I suppose we should head towards town. It’s our best bet for supplies. But it’s also our best chance of running into our dead friends.’
‘True’, I nodded agreeing with her.
‘But I think you should go that way’, Janet said nodding to her left, ‘the way myself and Suzanne came. It’s the long way to town, but the roads are pretty much empty. Well, they were when we were on them anyway.’
‘Good idea’. I replied. I turned the wipers on, and then pulled away from the garage slowly. Although it was still early afternoon, the day was dark due to the thick black clouds overhead. I wanted to turn the headlights on but I went against the idea.
We approached the spot where Suzanne had been killed. I watched Janet from the corner of my eye for a reaction as we came upon it and then past it. If she was thinking something she didn’t show it. I drove along the deserted roads while listening to the sound of the wipers, and the rain. Every so often Janet would tell me about where she had seen zombies congregating, or where she had seen signs of war, and so much blood before the rain had come and washed it all away.
The rain had been a natural cleanser on the streets, and for now it appeared that it was keeping the zombies and the vermin off them too. I wondered if that’s where the old expression ‘like a drowned rat’ came from or ‘rats from a sinking ship.’ I snorted out loud at my own thoughts.
‘What’s so funny?’ Janet asked.
‘Just my crazy mind.’
Janet scrunched her face and then went back to looking out her window which was starting to fog up from the heat inside the car. I put the fan on low and cold, as we pressed on without speaking. Every so often I came upon an abandoned car in the road but had more than enough space to go around them. Each time I passed one, I held my breath and gripped the wheel in anticipation of a surprise attack.
‘So what were you doing before all of this?’ I asked Janet.
She looked at me with a flushed face and turned away again. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Well, you know everything about me, and seeing as we are in this shit together I thought it would be nice to know a little bit more about you that’s all.’
‘Look Eric’, she snapped. ‘I really appreciate everything you did for me. I do. But I really don’t want to talk about it ok! Some things are better left in the past. And besides, what’s the point of a backstory in this world now? Even if we do manage to make it out alive nobody’s going to care where I was born or went to school, or where I had my first kiss. You know what I’m saying?’
Her words had been spoken with venom, and they had left me unable to reply. I nodded slowly, and kept my eyes on the uncertain road. Janet’s words ran through my mind over and over. It sounded as though her past had been a lot worse than our present.
Chapter 15
‘What the hell is that?’ I muttered. I leaned forward in my seat and peered through the window.
‘I don’t know,’ Janet said shaking her head. She moved forward in her seat, until she was almost on the dashboard. ‘But it definitely wasn’t there when I had come this way.’
I rolled the car to a stop and checked to make sure the doors were locked. I looked over my shoulders, but I didn’t see anything. We had passed a petrol station a hundred or so yards back, but the shutters were down and the pumps had been ripped up from the ground.
‘Who do you think put them there?’ Janet asked me.
‘I don’t know,’ I shrugged. ‘I’d be more concerned about why they were put there.’
‘Me too. Who has the time to do such a thing? Or the guts?’
There were four mannequins in total. All of them were naked, and male. But they weren’t the obstacle. Behind them were two cars that had collided together bumper to bumper. Both of the cars had been written off, and their combined length stretched across the entire road making it impossible for me to go around them with the car.
The dummies had been arranged to look as though they were reacting to a crash. There were two to each car. The front two were standing on the drivers’ sides with the doors open. Their hands rested on the top of the doors, and they had one foot inside the car and the other outside. The remaining dummies stood close behind them, again in identical poses with their hands on their heads.
I studied the whole set up for a long time trying to make sense of it all. Who would do such a thing? And why? Was this supposed to be some sort of trap for the dead? I looked past the cars and onto an apartment building just behind them. The main door was gone, and the higher floor windows were all smashed. I couldn’t see any signs of life. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t anybody there.
‘Maybe the guards’ set this up? Or the army?’ Janet said without taking her eyes from the mock up. ‘Maybe they are trying to lure the zombies and then pick them off?’
I looked to the apartment windows once again without replying to Janet. It would be an excellent spot for a sniper to lie in wait. They could have been sizing us up right now, waiting for us to step outside and then pick us off. I looked down my front and imagined the red laser dot on my chest.
‘Well?’ Janet turned to me.
‘I don’t like this one bit Janet.’ Something’s just not right.’ I looked at her and then back to the mannequins. ‘I think we should get the hell out of here.’
I put the car into reverse and prepared to do a u turn. I heard a pop from over my shoulder followed by a loud hiss. I didn’t know what was happening until I heard the same sounds a second time.
Somebody had shot our tyres out.
Chapter 16
I couldn’t tell which tyres had been shot but it didn’t stop me from reversing. I put my foot to the floor and the car lurched back. It bounced from side to side and hissed as I turned. I heard another pop come from right in front of me and I ducked behind the wheel as the front windshield shattered.
‘Get down!’ I roared at Janet, but she already was. I kept my head low behind the wheel as much as I could, and lurched forward.
‘You’re heading right into the line of fire Eric!’
‘I got no choice. The other way is blocked off!’
It took all of the strength in my arms to keep the car under control. It wanted to go any way but straight. I could hear the rims begin to grind against the concrete, and with every jerk the car made shards of glass fell in on top of us. My arms throbbed with pain trying to work the wheel and once the rain got inside it made things a whole lot worse.
Another pop came, and I swung the wheel as hard as I could to the left just by pure instinct. The wheel locked and then the backside of the car slid and spun in a full 360. Janet grabbed onto my arm.
‘Eric look out!’
I turned and saw the telephone poll. When my door collided against it my head was bashed hard against the glass.
Then I was out.
Chapter 17
I was awake but my eyelids were too heavy to open. I was lying on something hard but not uncomfortable. Somewhere close by I could hear muffled conversation. My head pounded as if somebody had gone at my skull with a wrecking ball. I managed to open my eyes for a second but the pain was too much. I tried to move but I couldn’t. I tried to speak but my mo
uth was too dry. Pain exploded all through my body – and then it was black again.
‘He’s been out a pretty long time. I’m worried about him.’
‘Well he did get a pretty serious blow to the head. It could be concussion or something worse.’
There were two voices coming from above me. The first one had been Janet’s, and the other was of a male. When I opened my eyes I was once again greeted by pain, but it wasn’t as bad as the previous time. Through my blurred vision I could just about make Janet out, and a very tall man standing over me.
‘Eric are you ok?’ Janet knelt down beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
I nodded and shielded my eyes against the light above me. I had to swallow a couple of times to lubricate my dry mouth and throat.
‘W… where are we? What happened Janet?’
‘We are safe Eric. For now anyway. Terrance here – saved us – if you could call it that.’
I looked at the big man who was staring down at me without expression. He nodded at me and then turned and walked away.
‘How you feeling?’ Janet asked.
‘Awful, but I’ll live.’ I sat up slowly, and rested my back against the wall. Janet smiled at me and sat in front of me cross legged. Terrance returned and held out a glass of foamy water in front of me.
‘It’s soluble paracetamol,’ he said in a deep voice. ‘Good for the head’
I thanked him and took the glass with both hands and drank it right away. I studied my surroundings quickly over the rim of the glass. We appeared to be inside some sort of small shop that seemed to be part of a petrol station. When I saw brand name fuel logo stickers all over the walls, and a stand filled with car maintenance items, my assumptions were confirmed.
‘So where exactly are we?’ I asked Terrance who was sitting opposite me on a pile of newspapers and polishing a large rifle with a rag. The sight of it made me uneasy, but I didn’t let Terrance see it. He had to be the one who had shot at us.
He looked at me for a long time before replying. ‘You are inside my house Eric. I took you in after you crashed your car.’
‘Were you the one who shot at us?’
Terrance nodded back at me without speaking. He kept his eyes fixed on me while stroking the gun up and down with his dirty cloth.
‘Why the fuck did you shoot at us in the first place?’ I asked him through gritted teeth. The rush of aggression sent waves of pain through my head.
‘I thought you were looters.’ Terrance replied nonplussed ‘Gangbangers. I’ve come across a few of them since all of this shit has gone down. There’s no law anymore – it is kill or be killed. When I saw that car you were driving, I thought you were big time. So I couldn’t take any chances.’
My blood boiled inside of me. I straightened myself up and Janet put her hand on my leg. She looked at me and widened her eyes. I knew by her expression that she didn’t want me to push this guy. She had obviously been talking to him while I was unconscious, and probably knew he wasn’t the type for pushing, especially not with that rifle. But I couldn’t stop myself from seething.
‘So it was you who set up that scene with the dummies too then I guess?’
‘Uh huh,’ Terrance replied smiling at me with an eerie pride. ‘I originally set it up for the zombies, you know, as a trap, to try and lure them in, and then pick them off one by one. But it didn’t work. They aren’t as stupid as you would think man, although some of them do shamble around groaning and shit. But there are others who move just as fast as we do. But none of them bought my little production.’
‘So you left it there to trap innocent people like us then?’
‘Hey!’ Terrance rested his gun on his lap and furrowed his brow. ‘I saved both your fucking assess back there man!’
‘You saved us? You shot our car to bits and nearly fucking killed us!’
‘Yeah because I thought you were looters Eric! I went up to your car to finish you off with two quick bullets. And I would have too if it wasn’t for your girlfriend there. So instead, I hauled your ass in here. I let you rest and gave you some of my medicine. And what fucking thanks do I get for it hey?’
I leaned forward and clenched my fists. Janet squeezed my leg long and hard. I knew what she was trying to do. She was begging me without speaking. I took some deep breaths and let a wave of pain pass through my skull before I spoke again.
‘I’m sorry Terrance. You’re right. If it wasn’t for you we would be dead. I appreciate what you did.’ The words I spoke had betrayed my thoughts, but I knew that was what the other two people in the shop needed to hear.
Terrance eyed me up and down through narrow eyes. He did the same to Janet and then stood up with his rifle.
‘Whatever man. I’m going for a dump. Help yourselves to whatever you want in the shop. Just don’t get greedy. I’ve got everything accounted for.’
He disappeared behind a door at the rear of the shop leaving me and Janet alone. I turned to her with my mouth hanging open.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. She took her hand from my knee and squeezed my shoulder. ‘You know, for a second I thought you were a goner.’
I smiled and rubbed the middle of my forehead. ‘It will take a lot more than that to finish me off.’
‘Good, ’she said rising and then went to one of the fridges and came back with two cokes. She twisted the cap off a bottle and handed it to me. I took a deep drink of the warm liquid and then exhaled.
‘My god, that’s amazing,’ I said.
‘The sugar will do you good Eric, give you a boost. Are you hungry?’
I shook my head. ‘Not right now I still feel a little sick from the crash. Maybe in a while though.’
I ran my eyes around the shop. The fridge Janet had gotten the drinks from was still pretty stacked. Mostly with fizzy drinks and a few five litre bottles of water. The counter beside it had a decent selection of chocolate bars up high, and rows of crisps and popcorn on the lower shelves. The cash register was still there, but it was powered off, and I guessed empty. The shelves where Terrance was sitting had once been used to stack fresh bread, maps, newspapers, batteries, magazines and biscuits according to the labelling. All of them were empty.
Apart from that, the shop was in pretty good condition, and it looked as though Terrance had done a good job of rationing, albeit mostly on junk food. But hey, he had survived, and that was what it was all about.
‘I don’t like it here Eric.’
I turned so quickly towards Janet that it caused another eruption of pain all down my neck. I rubbed my eyes. ‘Well, it’s hardly the Waldorf but it’s safe enough for now. Plus the car is wrecked Janet, and I’m a little fucked. So whether we like it or not, we’re kind of stuck here for a while.’
‘It’s not that Eric.’ Janet looked towards the door Terrance had gone through and then she slid closer to me. ‘It’s Terrance’, she whispered. ‘He’s crazy. You should have heard the things he was telling me while you were knocked out; it was some really freaky stuff. And the way he looks at me too. I don’t like it one bit.’
I was about to reply to her but Terrance came back into the shop. He looked the both of us up and down, and then to the cokes. He curled his mouth into a snarl and sat down resting his gun across his lap. Despite him telling us we could help ourselves to what we wanted, I felt guilty about the drinks. By the looks of it, Terrance wasn’t impressed either.
‘So what’s your deal? Are you two married?’ Terrance asked while alternating his stare between myself and Janet before he fixed his eyes on her.
I opened my mouth to answer but Janet got there before me.
‘No, we’re not married. We’re not even a couple. Eric has a girlfriend.’
Janet’s answers angered me. She had just told me that she didn’t trust this guy, yet here she was telling him stuff that he didn’t need to know. If she was right about how Terrance had been looking at her, then the idea that we were a couple could have kept us out of trouble. Now
he had free reign. I couldn’t believe how she could be so naïve.
‘Is that so?’ Terrance replied with a sickly smile. ‘And here I was about to go out back to give you two guys some privacy in case you wanted to, you know?’
I shuddered inside. Janet let out a loud tut. I could see her looking at me from the corner of my eye for back up, but I kept my eyes on Terrance, and the weapon he was pouring his affection over. The longer he kept it on his gun, the better it was for everybody.
‘So Terrance, tell us about you.’ I asked feeling more and more uneasy as the seconds passed.
Chapter 18
‘I was working in this garage for the last two years. I was an electrician before that for fifteen years. But when the big bang came along, and the construction industry died, I had to take what I could to survive and feed the family.’
‘That’s rough’, I replied sounding sincere but inside I couldn’t give a shit about this guy’s past. The longer I felt I could keep him talking about himself the less chance he had about turning his attentions to Janet. I knew Janet was capable of looking after herself, but that little old weapon sitting in Terrance’s lap would be a serious difference maker.
‘It sure is Eric. But you want to hear something funny?’
‘Sure I do.’
‘I used to work all the hour’s god sent in this little dump for a boss who I fucking despised. This guy was a real disrespectful piece of shit. A know it all too. He was an expert on everything and he always thought that he was better than me, better than everyone. You know what I’m saying man?’
The Dust: The Zombie Apocalypse in Ireland Page 7