by Lee Hayton
“Should we bring those inside?” she asked, pointing to a wooden cabinet almost flush with the wall. Until then, Robert hadn’t noticed the gun rack.
“So long as we lock up, they should be secure enough out here,” he said. The thought of more guns inside made him nervous, where once they would have reassured him.
“We should burn the bodies,” Annie said as she locked the door to the barn. She hooked the key onto her belt loop.
“Maybe.” Robert looked carefully at the dusty path back to the house, checking to see if any items had fallen off the truck as they’d moved it back inside. He didn’t want Blain stumbling across his dad’s wallet or the like.
Annie trudged up the path before him, stretching her arms up over her head until her spine popped. “There’s all sorts of diseases carried by corpses.”
Robert stopped and stared down at the ground between his feet. His lips curled and his nose wrinkled. It had been hard enough work to move the bodies—he couldn’t imagine what it would take to set fire to them. To smell them burning. He nervously pulled at the loose skin of his throat.
The warped joint of his right thumb, the onset of arthritis, ached like ice on a tooth.
“If we leave them in there, we’ll be at risk. And it’s too close to the house.” Annie caught his eye, raised her brows, and he nodded. He knew how soon the smell would become appalling.
“If we’re staying, it’s a good idea.” He turned and looked out across the vast expanse of fields. Annie followed his gaze.
In the far distance, a smudge of black clouds hung low on the horizon. If it weren’t for the tang of smoke in the air, he’d think a storm was brewing. But it was smoke from the city burning instead.
His one grand idea had been to get out of the city. All he’d found was that the insanity had worked its way deep out here too.
Robert turned back to Annie. I talked you out of looking for your son. Guilt swept over him, making his eyes tear and his throat swell. “Let’s wait till we know for sure.”
Frankie
The old garage creeped Frankie out. From the array of all of God’s creatures, spiders were the ones she appreciated the least—and not just spiders, the stuff that came out of them, too.
Walking into the garage while Robert backed in the car, a sticky thread snapped across her face. While she rubbed with urgent strokes, the silk clung determinedly to her lips. Frankie backpedaled a step, rubbing her face with panic on her T-shirt. Her lips thinned into a tight line.
Becca would usually laugh at her spider dance, a series of violent pats designed to track down a web’s chief occupant. Maybe not the tarantella—there was nothing beautiful or rhythmic here—but in the same vein.
Instead, Becca sat in the back seat of the car, cradling her new boyfriend’s head in her lap. All Frankie earned was a wan smile before her friend’s attention returned to Blain.
Still, if it came to a choice between the garage and the house, Frankie would have a long and hard think. Not much doubt about what Robert had found waiting inside for them. The sudden change of plan from the spacious house to the cramped and cold garage wasn’t for kicks.
Add to that, on the three-hour trip here from their overnight stop—halting every couple of miles to drag overturned trailers or cars out of the road—Frankie noticed the wound in Blain’s thigh was starting to smell.
It wasn’t the copper smell of blood—everyone stank of that scent. This odor resembled more the putrescence of old meat. Like when Becca’s mom purchased it on special, then left it for a couple of days because she couldn’t be bothered cooking—left it despite the “eat today or freeze” tags.
When Becca started to sniff, a certain signal she was crying, Frankie snuck out of the garage and walked along the fence line to a paddock. The sight of a horse calmly grazing in the corner brought a broad smile to her lips. She edged closer until she could reach out to pat his long face.
He tossed his head, and Frankie waited with her arm outstretched. When he leaned forward, she stroked him from his eyes to his nostrils.
“You don’t know the world’s gone to hell and back, do you?” Frankie cooed, her head bending close to the animal’s nose. “You don’t know that everyone I love is dead.” He exhaled a cloud of warm breath into her face.
Frankie pulled the mobile out of her pocket and clicked the button on the side. The screen had lowered its brightness in response to the draining battery. Even shielding the face of it with her hands, she could barely see the difference between the screen off and on.
Two percent battery remaining.
The battery icon had a lightning bolt struck through its center. Inside the farmhouse, there’d probably be a charger that fit.
Frankie turned to look up at the side windows—big windows, each more than a yard wide. The middles were crossed with wooden struts, smears of putty fastening the individual panes into place.
If the electricity were off, it probably wouldn’t make a difference. In a place like this, a place where people grew up as rugged as the buildings, there’d be a generator and the oil to run it and enough to power up a whole household, let alone charge a small mobile phone.
One percent. The screen was so dim now that the symbols could be imaginary.
Frankie drew back her arm and threw the phone as hard as she could. Before it landed, she turned, not wanting to see, not wanting to know.
The horse reared back then sidestepped away. Frankie clicked her tongue, hoping to lure him back. He only blinked long lashes at her outstretched hand.
Did horses only eat grass? Frankie wondered. Would the animal be okay out here with no one to look out for it?
Or would it die like the rest of them?
Rebekah
Rebekah hesitated then whispered, “Annie?” The woman looked beat. Sweat had dripped down her top, darkening her blouse in random stains. Streaks of mud and blood were on her face.
She and Robert had walked in a few minutes ago, him announcing he needed a few hours’ sleep, then they could move into the house. He’d smiled as he sat down in the driver’s seat, but the curve in his mouth never reached his eyes.
Annie had sat down against the block wall opposite Rebekah and closed her eyes. Although Robert began to snore, Rebekah could tell from Annie’s rapid breathing that she was still wide awake.
Of course, she should wait.
The two adults had been busy doing something awful in the house, something Robert explained as “cleaning” to her and Frankie. The quaver in Robert’s voice was enough to warn her further questions away.
In the hours since she’d spent some time sleeping, but she was too worried to dream for long. Blain’s condition had worsened, and if she waited for a few hours just because she didn’t want to speak up, something bad might happen.
“What is it, hun?” Annie didn’t open her eyes.
Rebekah walked across and hunkered down beside her. The concrete floor was spotted with rat droppings. Oil stains, like those her dad used to lose his nut about, were well hidden, but she knew they were there from smell alone.
“Blain’s getting worse. I think there’s something wrong with his thigh.”
Annie ran a hand over her face and rubbed her eyes. The look of pity on her face stabbed Rebekah straight in the heart. “He’s been shot in the leg. Of course there’s something wrong with his thigh.”
A flush spread up Rebekah’s chest. “You said there’d be medicine here.”
Annie nodded but continued to sit where she was. “I’m tired, hun. Why don’t you have a look around and see what you can find?” Her breathing started to slow into the even inhalations of sleep, then she shook herself awake. “There’s some aspirin in the car. Give him that for the pain.”
Rebekah paused, about to list why that wasn’t enough, then shrugged her shoulders. Whatever Annie could do for Blain, so could Rebekah. Neither of them was trained, and at least Rebekah was partially refreshed.
Scooting back to Blain’s side
, Rebekah held a hand up to his forehead. The hair there was matted, and a sheen of sweat stayed in place even though the garage was cold.
He didn’t feel to her like he was burning up, but there was something wrong. His leg smelled bad. The flesh swelled tight against his jeans leg. The tourniquet she’d applied earlier had stopped the bleeding. It would do nothing for infection.
The clotting wounds on his chest looked painful. His thigh looked deadly. To stay in this dirty garage would only make things worse. At least inside, Rebekah could bathe him clean.
She prodded Blain in the shoulder. “Hey, wake up.” His eyes flickered open, but as soon as he glanced around, they faded closed again. She tightened her forefingers and gave him a little knuckle punch. Compared to his injuries, it wouldn’t hurt. Just a jab to let him know she meant business.
“Hey, Becca. I’m sleeping.”
“I know. But we need to get you inside. Can you stand up?” She grabbed hold of his hands and started to pull. For a moment, he was dead weight, then he gave a short shake of his head and sat up.
With her help, he got to his feet, using her shoulder as a crutch, so he didn’t have to put weight on his bad leg.
An age passed in the time it took Blain to walk out of the garage. By the time they exited into bright sunlight, he’d lost some of his grogginess, his weight lightening on her shoulder.
There was a wooden rocking chair on the front porch. Rebekah guided him over to it and gasped when he released his hold to drop into the seat. She hadn’t realized how close to collapse she’d been.
The long runners on either side of the chair made it easy to push into the house. The sweep up the line of the front made it glide over the jamb, and then he was inside.
Rebekah’s heart started to pound harder as she looked around her. Whatever they’d been cleaning up in here, it wasn’t blood. The floors and walls were covered with it. What the hell had they been doing in here all this time while Blain grew weaker?
She walked into the first room on her right. Steps led down to a basement on the far side of the room, but otherwise, it appeared to be used for storage. Broken chairs, a disused coat rack.
The next room Rebekah tried was a small washroom. A bath used up most of one wall, while a basin sat along the right-hand side. For guests, Rebekah thought. A decorative hand towel hung from the side of the sink, pristine.
A cup displaying an arrangement of desiccated flowers sat on the windowsill. Rebekah grabbed it, dumping the flowers on the floor, and used the towel to wipe the detritus from the bottom of the glass. She filled it with water and brought it out to Blain. “Drink.”
He downed it in a few seconds, and she refilled it. This time, halfway through, his face crumpled up in pain, and he pushed the glass back at her. For a few seconds, she hovered in case he needed to vomit, but he relaxed back into a doze, and she moved on.
Past a fireplace, the last door on the right-hand side of the open-plan living and dining areas opened into a small bedroom. A faded rock-star poster hung in pride of place on the wall opposite the single bed. Rebekah’s lips curved. Blain’s old room?
She pulled the door closed and walked across the dining area to the kitchen. The tiled floor was covered in so much blood that Rebekah was afraid she’d slip. Leaning into the room, she grabbed a dishcloth off the side of the oven and spread it out on the floor. After stepping on it, she shuffled her feet forward, so the cloth moved with her.
The cupboards held crockery, cups, cutlery, and fancy serving platters. One, under the oven, kept a stack of pots and a stack of frying pans. In the corner cupboard, she struck gold: Tylenol and Midol still in their factory-sealed packets, prescription containers half full of codeine and Tramadol, and an herbal sachet with dried weed inside it.
Rebekah held it up to her nose and sniffed. It didn’t smell like weed weed, so she tossed it back into the cupboard. Medicines with unrecognised names, she left alone. The painkillers went back to Blain.
Tramadol was the strongest. Rebekah jiggled two tablets into her hand and tapped Blain’s shoulder to wake him. “Take these.” She had the glass of water at the ready, but once again he seemed happy to dry-swallow them.
If Blain hadn’t been sleepy before, he soon would be.
More than painkillers, he needed antibiotics. They’d probably be in a bathroom somewhere. A hallway. A broom cupboard. A sewing room. Finally, Rebekah walked into a bedroom with an en-suite bathroom.
Again, it looked like it was for guests or for show. The layer of dust on the headboard and the stale smell indicated no one had even gone in there for a while. The bathroom cupboards were empty of anything but spare toilet paper and extra soap.
Keeping her back pressed to the wall, self-conscious or scared, Rebekah walked upstairs. The carpet was worn thin in the middle, but keeping to the side kept her footsteps quiet.
A bathroom. At last. Rebekah opened the sliding door of a cabinet above the sink and took stock. Most of the items she didn’t recognize, but there was a bottle labeled Doxycycline. “Take ONE tablet twice daily with a large glass of water until the medicine is finished for infection” was printed below. Infection. Check. She unscrewed the lid and saw fourteen tablets nestled in the bottom.
Frankie was peering in through the open front door when Rebekah made it back to Blain. Frankie raised her eyebrows. “They’re finished up in there, then?”
Rebekah shrugged. “They’re both asleep, so yeah. Can you give me a hand?”
“Doing what?”
“I need to give Blain some medicine, but then we also need to. . .” She pointed at his jeans.
With the swelling in his thigh, his Levis resembled a fat pork sausage more than a leg. The opposite leg had room to move, while his left was torturing the seams.
Frankie bit her lip and shrugged. “I’m not a doctor. Can’t Annie help you get your boyfriend’s jeans off?” She sniffed and turned her head.
Rebekah bit back a retort. It’s the strain. She's a bitch because of the strain. Never mind that Frankie hadn’t seen her own mother lying dead or lost her only son.
“Fine,” Rebekah said. “But I’ll still need your help getting him on the bed.” She pointed to the open door of the room she’d found. “I can’t lift him on my own.”
Frankie relented and moved over to help slide Blain as close as they could. Then, while Rebekah crouched and draped Blain’s arm over her shoulder, Frankie pushed him upright and swung away from the chair.
She got under Blain’s other side just as Rebekah thought her knees would give way. Together they shuffled him into the bedroom, turning just as they drew level with the bed, so Blain fell back onto the covers.
“See if there're some scissors in the kitchen,” Rebekah ordered. “Be careful. There’s a lot of blood.”
A blush lit up Rebekah’s cheeks as she unzipped Blain’s fly. She couldn’t pull his jeans down now, his leg was too swollen, but she dug her fingers in until she could feel the belt, and she undid the makeshift tourniquet.
When Frankie returned with scissors and a large knife, her face was pale. “If Robert and Annie were cleaning, I think they missed a bit,” she said, a tremble in her voice.
She handed the scissors to Rebekah then moved to Blain’s feet and started to carve up the jeans with the knife. A boning blade, it slid through the thick fabric with such ease it made Rebekah nervous.
After Frankie had slit up to his knee, Rebekah edged her scissors into the gap and cut up his lower thigh. As the material wedged tighter, the job became harder. More than once Blain moaned, and she stopped, guilt closing her throat until he settled.
His wound was a mess. With the material loosened, the smell grew stronger. Rebekah fumbled with the scissors, straining to cut through the extra layers of fabric at his waist.
The second leg was easier. Without the swelling, ample room existed for the scissors to cut down the inside leg. Once again Rebekah joined to where Frankie had knifed the cotton apart at the knee. Rebekah pushed
the fabric down and pulled it out from under him. A grotesque mockery of a male stripper.
Uncovered, Blain’s leg was worse than Rebekah had expected. The flesh stretched tight, shiny as a beach ball. Discoloration contained a rainbow of sickness. Infection was eating through him. Rebekah felt hypnotized by the awfulness of it. He was dying in front of them. Her hands clutched the side of the bed for balance.
A hand grabbed her upper arm, fingers digging in. Rebekah turned and stared into Blain’s open eyes—bright and blue even through the opiates. “The bullet. You’ve got to dig the slug out.”
His grip weakened, and his eyes rolled once and then closed.
Rebekah knelt to look closer at the wound. A bullet. How was she meant to get that out from the mangled mess?
“We need tweezers,” Frankie said. “And someone who knows what they’re doing.” She swallowed with an audible click.
Rebekah pointed out of the room. “Upstairs. There’s a bathroom right off the landing. I saw some tweezers in there.” As Frankie turned to leave, she called after her, “And a makeup mirror, too. Bring that down.”
The magnifying mirror would be useless, but the bright light at the top could make the operation possible.
Operation. I’m fourteen years old, and I’m performing an operation.
She stood up and moved to the basin in the bathroom. She ran the water for long minutes before it started to warm. When it was hot, she pushed her hands under, scrubbing with a pink soap shaped like a scallop shell.
“Just like a real doctor,” Frankie said from the door. Rebekah ignored her quip as she laid out items on the bed. “There’s a whole lot of cotton balls and stuff in there too. May come in handy.”
“Can you get me a jug or something? I’ll need to clean up his leg.”
Frankie gestured at the tub. “There’s a bath there.”
“I don’t want him floating in the water while I’m trying to do this. I just want the worst of the blood washed away.”
Frankie gave an exasperated sigh, but Rebekah caught the sheen of tears in her eyes. When Frankie returned with a water jug, half filled, Rebekah saw the smears of blood on her shoes.