The Journey Home

by R J Murray

She glanced back at Clive, a frown forming at his sullen silence. He stared blankly ahead, lost in his own thoughts.

  “I’ll go on ahead,” Jacob offered. “Check out a few houses and see if we can find somewhere to stay.”

  “Then I’ll go with you,” she said firmly, though she tightened her grip on her rifle nervously. “You shouldn’t go alone.”

  “No!” Clive said.

  “I’m going,” she snapped back. “Wait here for us.”

  His face tightened as he pressed his lips firmly together, swallowing down the argument he wanted to make as he noticed the others watching him. She smiled sweetly and reached out to pat his arm, a promise to return to him in her eyes.

  Terri followed Jacob towards the town, twisting her head to look back once at the others, her gaze lingering on Clive. He didn’t look away but nor did he smile and she held back a sigh.

  As much as she regretted what had happened with Alan, it was his choice. She understood that, much as she understood that they couldn’t have carried him with them. The snow made travel hard enough as it was, and even without the threat of the infected, they wouldn’t have been able to help him.

  Clive would just have to come to that realisation in his own time. She hoped it didn’t take him too long.

  “This one,” Jacob said, pausing outside a low building with an overhanging roof.

  He looked up and down the street before forcing open the wooden gate. It shifted slowly with the weight of the snow behind it and he squeezed through the gap before making his way to the door.

  Unsure what to do, Terri stood beside the gate, her rifle held ready. Jacob looked back, nodded approval and reached for the door handle. It turned easily in his hand and the door swung inwards soundlessly. Terri swallowed hard as she watched him step inside, rifle held up to his shoulder.

  “Hello…” Jacob said, his voice low enough to carry through the house but not much further.

  He held himself ready as he waited, finger resting gently on the trigger of his rifle. One bullet, one shot, that would be all he had. Not for the first time since it had all fallen apart, he wished for a better weapon than the one he’d found himself with when everything began.

  When nothing responded to his call, he reached one hand down to his jacket pocket and pulled out a small torch. It was attached to his keychain and he flicked it on. A bright white light shone forth and he swung it around the hallway before moving further inside.

  Terri, with one last glance over at Clive, followed him inside. She held her rifle to her shoulder as he’d shown her and steadied her breathing as she moved slowly through the house. She copied Jacobs movements as best she could.

  When he approached a door he slowed, pausing beside the door before swinging out, his rifle aimed into the room. He’d move it across the room, left to right as he checked for threats and only when sure it was empty would he move on. It took only a moment and when Terri tried, the room blurred before her unless she moved a great deal slower than he had.

  From room to room they went, taking short, quiet steps and moving silently. No speech was needed as they checked everywhere for potential threats. Only after the last room was done, did Jacob lower his rifle.

  “Let’s get the others,” he said. “This place’ll do for the night.”

  “What’s left of it,” Terri muttered.

  He smiled but didn’t say anything as he turned towards the kitchen. No doubt looking to raid the pantry. She left him to it and headed for the door, poking her head out and waving for the others to join her.

  They hurried over, eager to be inside and out of the bitter cold. Each of them filed past Terri as she held open the door. Elise with a small smile, Mandy a worried look and Clive a slight tilt of the head.

  She shut the door firmly behind him and made a mental note to look for a key. She had no intention of sleeping with the door unlocked for anyone to walk in.

  The others filed through the hallway towards the kitchen where they could see the light from Jacobs torch. Terri followed them, pausing beside the door as she realized just how crowded the small kitchen was with all the others in it.

  “Not much in the way of food,” Jacob said with a gesture to the small pile of packets and tins on the worktop beside him.

  “Every little bit helps,” Terri said with a smile that he couldn’t see in the darkness.

  “What now?” Elise asked timidly.

  “We get some rest,” he said. “In the morning we can search a few more of the houses and see if we can find anything that will make our journey easier.”

  “Did you find a key?” Terri asked.

  “Key? Oh, to the door. No.”

  “Need to stand watch then,” she said. “I’ll go first.”

  “Fine by me,” Jacob said. “I’ll show everyone else to the bedrooms.”

  Terri pressed herself flat against the wall as the others filed past her. There wasn’t much for her to do but follow after and when Jacob directed them into the bedrooms, she carried on towards the door.

  Once there, she slid down the wall until she was sat on the cold floor beside the door, close enough for her left knee to be pressing against it. If anything tried to come inside, it would have to push past her to do it.

  She rested the rifle across her lap and leant back against the wall as she waited for the night to slowly pass.

  Chapter 6

  Elise woke slowly, reaching a hand up to wipe the sleep from her eyes. Her mouth was gummy and tasted like something had died in it. That, at least, was one reason to be grateful she wasn’t hooking up with anyone like the others were.

  She pushed herself up, the covers falling away and ran a hand through her hair, tugging at the tangles and ignoring the greasy feel to it as best she could.

  A quick look at where Mandy slept curled up on her side was enough to remind her to move quietly. She’d rather not wake her if she had to. As much as she got on with the woman, Mandy only really liked men. She had some strange notion that other women were competition whether they were interested in the same men or not.

  As a result, she was distinctly catty with the two women in their small group and it was a strain on Elise that she could do without.

  Jacob had decided that the women would sleep in one and the men in the other. It was just the easier option at the time and one few would argue with. Mandy though, well, she had tried. When Jacob refused to let her have her way she had settled into the bed beside Elise with a frosty silence.

  She rubbed once more at her eyes and pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn before looking around the room.

  The wallpaper was an old-fashioned floral design on a pale yellow background. The chest of drawers and wardrobe were old teak, well worn by years of use. There was little in the way of ornamentation though a few pictures hung on the walls. She guessed it had been used as a spare room for some time.

  A thin shaft of light came through the heavy curtains and she pulled them aside carefully to look out at the snow-covered back garden. There were no tracks in the snow, which was a relief, and a high fence surrounded it, cutting off the view of the nearby houses.

  She let the curtains fall and moved over to the door, taking one last look at Mandy before stepping out into the hallway. She frowned as she saw no one was guarding the front door but realised quickly that it must be because Jacob considered it safe.

  He wouldn’t let anything happen to them after all. No one had elected him the leader of the group, he’d just taken charge and they all followed him without question. He seemed to know what he was doing and he did every task with a quiet competence that reminded her of her dad.

  She brushed that thought aside. The last thing she needed was to start blubbering which she would do if she allowed herself to dwell on the fact that he’d been missing for some time. She knew what that meant, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

  There was no running water in the bathroom and the toilet had already been used by one of the others. S
he screwed up her face as she sat down to relieve her bladder and tried not to breathe too deeply.

  Not that it had been much better at the cabin, but at least there when you did your business it went into a septic tank that could be emptied out when it got full. Which Jacob and Clive had done at least once while they were there.

  She pulled up her jeans and buttoned them before taking a look at herself in the mirror above the sink. She noted the dark circles around her eyes and the tangled mess that was her hair. With a heavy sigh, she pulled open the medicine cabinet hoping that whoever had lived there previously had left some toothpaste.

  As per usual, the only luck she seemed to have was bad, and there was little of use. She’d just have to face the others with her breath smelling like ass then. Nothing else for it, she reasoned. No doubt Mandy would awaken with her breath smelling of roses.

  The grumpy look she wore faded as she walked into the living room where Clive, Terri and Jacob were all inventorying a large pile of items that were dumped into the middle of the carpet. She liked Terri and had spoken with her often.

  Clive was okay, but he always seemed preoccupied, worrying other something or other. He needed to loosen up a little. Just because civilization had ended didn’t mean he had to walk around with a stick so far up his backside he couldn’t bend in the slightest.

  She smiled at that thought and nodded a greeting to the broad-shouldered man when he looked up and noticed her.

  “Oh, hey. Finally awake then.”

  “Yah,” she said and returned the smile Terri flashed her.

  Jacob didn’t look up from whatever he was writing in his notebook and her brows drooped a little at that.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Trying to work out how much food we have,” Terri said.

  “And other stuff,” Clive added with an affectionate smile for his girlfriend.

  It seemed that they’d found the time to make up, Elise thought. Whatever Terri had done had managed to wipe the stroppy look off his face at least and he seemed a little more relaxed. Well, as relaxed as he ever was anyway.

  “Can I help?” she asked Jacob.

  “Nay, lass,” he said finally glancing up at her and flashing a quick smile that set her heart beating a little faster. “We’re almost done.”

  She gave a little shrug and moved past the others to take a seat on the chair beside the window. It was directly opposite the large TV and she reached for the remote. It wasn’t like there would be anything to watch but she did miss it. The others looked over as the TV switched on and static filled the screen.

  “Typical!” Terri said. “We have power for the television but nothing on it and yet the water is off.”

  “There’s a burst pipe somewhere,” Jacob said. “The other houses might be fine but I’m betting this house has a…”

  He trailed off as Elise, flipping through the channels, stopped on one that was showing an actual picture. A man in a suit sat at a desk and read from a paper before him.

  “What’s he saying?” Terri asked, excitedly. “My French is limited at best.”

  “I’ll get Mandy,” Clive offered rising to his feet and dashing from the room.

  “Good thinking with the tele, lass,” Jacob said approvingly.

  Elise’s lips formed a wide smile at his praise and she lifted her chin a little as a blush heated her cheeks. Terri quickly forced a sly smile from her own face as she looked down, all too aware of what the younger woman was going through.

  Clive returned with a faintly dishevelled Mandy in tow. She wore a look of irritation on her pale face that faded as she saw the TV screen.

  “What’s he saying?” Jacob asked.

  There was an urgency to his tone that pulled at Elise and she stared at the French woman silently urging her to speak.

  “It is an update,” she said after several long minutes. “Limited communications are returned but restricted to official personnel and emergency services.”

  “That’s something though,” Jacob said, nodding slowly.

  “Non!” She said, shaking her head and going paler than she already was.

  “What?” Terri asked, but was shushed by the other woman.

  She listened intently for what seemed like an eternity to those others watching, unable to comprehend what was being said. Finally, she spoke.

  “The infected people, they are everywhere. People are being warned to stay inside, to wait for help.”

  She paused and sucked in a deep breath before saying, “Paris, is lost.”

  “What do you mean?” Terri asked but Jacob silenced her with a look.

  Images began to flash across the screen, scenes of devastation and death. Fires burning unchecked against a city skyline, rampaging hordes of infected men and women running headlong into hails of bullets from the packed ranks of soldiers.

  They died in their thousands but never stopped, just kept on, climbing over the bodies until they reached the soldiers. Then they would tear at them, beating them with their fists and biting where they could.

  There was a berserker rage to them. A bullet to the head would take them down immediately but any other injury was ignored until blood loss caused them to collapse. They were wild animals, ceaseless and without a care for themselves as they tore into the soldiers.

  The infected would bite one of them before moving on to the next. Only when they were all down would they start to feast on any of the soldiers they could get before they began to turn and join their ranks.

  More scenes followed, a seemingly endless parade of horror that made Elise want to weep. From all across the globe, video taken by phones or cameras, uploaded to the net before it went down. People dying or turning, becoming like those very infected that had bitten them.

  A man’s voice continued to speak over the footage and Mandy dazedly translated for the others. He spoke of cities lost and numbers of people dead versus numbers who turned. He spoke of desperation amongst world leaders and calls to unleash nuclear fury against infected cities.

  “They won’t do it,” Clive said. “Not even for this. Surely, they wouldn’t, would they?”

  “Aye, lad. They would,” Jacob said, his voice low and his tone sombre. “They can’t fight cities full of them by conventional means.”

  “Non!” Mandy said, shaking her head. There was a fear in her eyes as she looked at the others. “India has fired nuclear bombs at Pakistan.”

  “Not surprised by that,” Jacob muttered.

  “China too has used them,” she continued. “They have hit several of their own cities already. As has Russia.”

  “Any news on England?” Terri asked quietly.

  “Non.”

  “There’s still hope then.”

  Elise wiped at her eyes, not even aware of when she’d started to cry. Her dad was dead, she knew that though she couldn’t bring her self to say it out loud, but she’d held out hope that her friends and family back home were still safe.

  “If… if anything bad had happened, they’d say, wouldn’t they?”

  “Aye, lass, that they would.”

  “Then we should still go, right?”

  “We’re going.” Jacob looked at her directly as he said it. “We might have to change our route with Paris between us and the coast, but we’ll get there.”

  “What about south?” Clive asked. “Down towards Marseille and find a boat that will take us around Spain.”

  “Nah, anyone with a boat will have set out to sea long since,” Jacob said. He scratched at his bearded chin as he thought, eyes distant. “We need a plane.”

  “What?”

  The older man looked at Mandy and asked, “he said anything about flights?”

  “Oui,” she said with a nod. “No flights, all airports closed to the public.”

  “There’ll be small planes or helicopters out there,” Jacob said. “All we need to do is get hold of one and I can fly us home.”

  “You can fly?” Terri asked, eyebrows ris
ing up in surprise.

  “Aye, lass. That I can.” He nodded thoughtfully, a small smile growing on his lips. “We can bypass the worst of it. Fly right over.”

  “I have a question,” Elise said quietly and shrank back in the chair as all eyes turned to her.

  “Go on, lass.”

  “Where are the people of this town? I mean, the TV said to stay in your homes.”

  “Good point,” Jacob said. He looked at the others and nodded once as he pushed himself to his feet. “I think we need to find out.”

  “What do you propose?” Clive asked.

  “I’ll go and look, the rest of you check out a few of these houses and gather whatever you think we’ll need. Maps, look for maps especially.”

  “That a good idea?” Clive asked. “Going alone, I mean.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Elise said eagerly.

  “It might not be safe…” Jacob began but she cut him off.

  “I’m a good shot, you know I am.”

  “Aye, but…”

  “And it’s no more dangerous than being anywhere else at the moment. The infected could be anywhere.”

  “True…”

  “Then it’s settled,” she said. “I’m going with you. Safer that way.”

  He looked at the others helplessly. Clive shrugged, Terri hid a secretive smile and Mandy glared.

  “Fine,” he said, defeated. “We’ll go now and be back in no more than three hours.”

  “What happens if you aren’t back by then?” Clive asked while looking at his watch.

  “Then you leave without us,” he said. “Because we’re likely dead.”

  Chapter 7

  Mandy waited for the last of them to leave before she pulled up the sleeve of her jacket so that she could see the marks left on her arm by the infected woman. She grimaced as she pressed one finger to the red and puffy flesh around each of those marks.

  Violet striations spread out from those marks, giving her the impression of purple roots burrowing deep into the flesh of her arm. There was pain there, but not so much as she’d feared.

  Jacob had taken his rucksack and with it the only first aid kit that they had. That left her with little to do but stare at those marks and wonder if she was going to become like the infected. She’d not been bitten, but there was something wrong with the marks that woman had left on her arm.