Tabitha

by Hall, Andrew

  ‘Come on, you,’ Liv coaxed him, taking his glass and setting it down on the wall. ‘We’re p-playing cards. And you don’t g-get to duck out of it this time.’ She and Tabitha took a hand each and hauled him over to sit with them on the blankets. Will cheered.

  ‘Cards, Chris?’ said Will.

  ‘No,’ he replied, sipping his drink, sat on the edge of the wall with his feet hanging over the garden below. Will held his stare for a moment, and went back to dealing cards out to the group.

  Under the wide watchful eyes of a white painted ghost, a few tiny shapes sat huddled together on the castle wall. Drinking and laughing in the bright summer sun, in their last little corner of civilisation. Beyond the park below the town lay dead and septic. Prophetic newspapers blew past empty streets and lurking silver shapes.

  23

  ‘Spot on,’ said Jim, amidst the munching and clinking of breakfast around the kitchen table. Sausages and beans steamed on their plates, bright and orange as paint.

  ‘Delicious,’ Liv agreed, busily feeding her hangover away.

  ‘Delicious?’ Chris grunted groggily. ‘It’s beans. Again.’

  ‘Give it here then,’ said Jim, taking Chris’s plate off him. Chris pulled the plate back, and slammed it down on the table.

  ‘Don’t touch my food,’ he growled.

  ‘Well stop bloody complaining then,’ Jim replied, shovelling in his breakfast. Tabitha could only watch longingly with a post-drunk hunger. Her brain still very much wanted her to eat. But her stomach lurched at the prospect of food, making her feel ill just thinking about it. It didn’t help that everyone was eating loudly, and the smell of stodgy deliciousness was filling her nose. At least her cup of water was good; the best she’d ever tasted. Cold and smooth, straight from the spring outside in the courtyard. She sipped it and tasted things she’d never experienced before. Tiny reactions; electrical pops. A cool fresh electrolyte, fuelling sparks in her heart. It almost felt like wine in her head; a new sensation. She ran her metal fingers up and down the cup in a high rasping whisper, enjoying her strange new high. The more she focussed on it, the less she felt like eating anyway. Tabitha looked up from her cup and smiled at Laika in the corner, waiting patiently beside the table for everyone’s leftovers. Everyone always left a little bit for her.

  ‘So, we’ve got the g-guns,’ said Liv, in between mouthfuls of beans. ‘So what’s next?’

  ‘Well, now we go out and find people,’ Will replied with a full mouth, scraping the last few beans from his plate.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Jim, blowing his cup of tea to slurp at it.

  ‘Survivors,’ Will replied. The clinking and clattering of plates stopped suddenly.

  ‘No,’ said Chris, moving the beans around his plate. ‘I’m not going out there.’

  ‘We need to,’ Will replied calmly. ‘It’s on us to help other people find this place.’

  ‘Nah,’ Chris said simply. Will stared at him, silent and furious. Liv saw a fight brewing. Tabitha watched in silence, sipping her water.

  ‘What’s the plan then?’ Liv asked Will, overlooking Chris’s sulk. Arguing with Chris wouldn’t change his mind on the subject; Liv knew that much. He was always an arse; some days it was just more concentrated. And yeah, he had every right not to go with them outside if he didn’t want to. Just so long as he knew that any food and supplies they brought back weren’t his to use. He could go hungry, for all she cared.

  ‘We’re going to the police station,’ Will told them, having thought it over for a little while. ‘I think there might still be riot gear in there. So that’s our next place to go.’

  ‘Riot gear?’ said Jim, confused.

  ‘Yep,’ Will replied. ‘We’ve got guns and bulletproof vests. But that won’t be enough against spiders. We need armour.’

  ‘I would have thought a castle would be enough to stop the spiders from killing us,’ said Chris.

  ‘Unless they get inside,’ Liv replied. Jim nodded, gulping his tea loudly and putting his mug back down on the table.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Will. ‘And we’ll need to go outside again for food, supplies, et cetera.’ He rubbed his tired eyes and fretted at the thought. Chris shook his head, and pushed the beans around on his plate some more.

  ‘So, the police station,’ said Liv. ‘Do you think we’ll be r-running into a lot of spiders out there?’

  ‘I think so, yeah.’ Will replied, with a grim nod.

  ‘We will,’ said Tabitha, hugging herself against her gnawing hunger.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Chris. ‘So it begs the question, why even go out there any more?’

  ‘For food,’ Liv snapped. ‘You know, so we don’t st-starve to death.’

  ‘And because there are still people out there looking for help,’ said Will. ‘We’ve got the means to help them, and this place to keep them safe. We owe it to them.’

  ‘We don’t owe anyone anything,’ Chris shot back. ‘Why should we have to risk our lives to help other people, just because you say so?’

  ‘Chris,’ Will warned him. The others stopped eating, and waited in the tense silence.

  ‘All this time you’ve been banging on about doing this and doing that for other people,’ said Chris. ‘When we all know, deep down, that we’re all just looking out for ourselves. So don’t pretend like you’re some knight in shining armour, when we all know that you didn’t save a soul to get up here in the first place. You just wanted to get out of harm’s way.’ Will stared at him across the table. Chris looked down into his cup of tea, lost in thought for a moment. ‘I’ve seen people down there in town when it all started, crawling over each other like rats to get away from death,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen crowds trampling little kids to get away from those spiders. I’ve seen people dying face down in the streets in their own shit and blood, with no one hanging around to help them. Even these two,’ he said, nodding at Liv and Jim. ‘The day we all ran up here to get inside the castle, I saw a man and a woman pushing Jim out of the way to get away from the spiders. Pushing past an old man to get up here; not helping him. No one was helping anyone. It was all just survival. If you can leave someone else to get eaten, that just means there’s one less spider looking for you. That’s what it’s like out there. So don’t tell me we owe anything to anyone.’ The others sat in silence. Tabitha knew he was right. That was the worst part. She thought back to all the skins she’d seen; she’d just been glad that they weren’t her. Liv and Jim looked on silently between Will and Chris. Will looked angry. They didn’t get involved when Will looked angry. Something was burning up inside him.

  ‘We owe it to civilisation to help people!’ Will yelled back at him, slamming his fist down on the table. ‘Civilisation looks after its weakest, and that’s what we’re doing!’

  ‘Civilisation?’ Chris said mockingly. ‘Five rejects and a bloody dog, that’s civilisation is it?’

  ‘Yes it is!’ Will snapped, slamming the table again.

  ‘Towns. Armies. Hospitals. That’s civilisation mate,’ said Chris. ‘And it’s all gone.’

  ‘We’re rebuilding it!’ Will shouted back. ‘One brick at a time, one day at a time!’ his angry look softened to despair. ‘I mean, why do you think we get up every day?’ he asked Chris. ‘What do you think we’ve been doing all this hard work for?’

  ‘Us,’ Chris said simply. ‘I’m not working for other people, and I’m not growing food for other people. I’m doing it all for me, because that’s called survival.’

  ‘You can’t think like that. We don’t think like that!’ Will said desperately.

  ‘Yeah?’ Chris replied. ‘Ask this lot. See what they think.’

  ‘I’ll t-tell you what I think,’ Liv snapped at him. ‘I think Will’s right, and you’re wrong. That’s all I need to know.’ Will nodded, and looked to Chris for his reply.

  ‘So you happen to agree with what the alpha male thinks,’ said Chris, nodding. ‘See, that’s interesting.’

  ‘What?
’ said Liv.

  ‘Pairing up with the leader, reflecting everything that he’s about,’ said Chris, looking between them. ‘That’s survival at work.’

  ‘Piss off,’ Liv told him.

  ‘You’re talking out of your arse lad,’ said Jim.

  ‘I’m telling it like it is!’ Chris yelled back. ‘You think there are survivors out there? You’re out of your minds. This isn’t something that people survive!’

  ‘I’m a survivor,’ Tabitha chipped in quietly. ‘I found this place. You’ve all helped me survive.’

  ‘Yeah, but look at you!’ Chris chuckled. ‘Look at what you’ve turned into! That’s the only reason you survived.’

  ‘Don’t you dare talk to her like that!’ said Will, shouting over Liv and Jim.

  ‘What am I then?’ said Tabitha, losing her temper. ‘Go on, tell me what I am!’

  ‘Well, you’re a freak,’ Chris replied, with a look that said he was stating the obvious. ‘You’re not even human any more,’ he told her. Tabitha’s newfound rage took her over, fuelled on the latent black hate of a bullied childhood. She went for him. Liv jumped in after her, grabbing her arms to pull her back. It took all three of them to stop her from hitting him. Laika was barking.

  ‘You’ll kill him,’ Liv warned her.

  ‘That’s the idea,’ Tabitha growled, straining against them.

  ‘T-Tabitha. You’ll kill him.’ Liv repeated, looking into her wild eyes. Tabitha stared past Liv’s shoulder at Chris. He was smiling at her as he stood up from the table.

  ‘So this is the real Tabitha coming out,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you dare start!’ Liv yelled at him.

  ‘Chris, go outside,’ Will warned him, struggling with the others to hold Tabitha back. Tabitha hesitated then, and breathed deep. She heard Laika’s barking, frantic and distressed. She felt her new friends around her, straining to hold her back from something she’d regret.

  ‘Chris, go outside!’ Will repeated.

  ‘…I’ll go outside,’ said Tabitha, easing off. She felt the others relax around her, still holding her close. Like a family. She stepped back, and looked around at their worried faces. ‘I’ll go out for a while,’ she said, nodding. ‘No one come out after me.’

  ‘I’ll go w-with you,’ said Liv.

  ‘Please, don’t,’ Tabitha said gently. Liv watched her go and wanted to say something. Wanted to be there for her. Tabitha stepped outside the keep and shut the door behind her, and Will sighed with relief.

  ‘I’m not holding her back next time,’ Jim warned Chris. ‘Actually, if you come out with anything like that again, I’ll hold you down for her. How’s that?’

  ‘Jim,’ Liv pleaded. ‘Please don’t m-make this any worse.’ There was a sudden crackling bang of lightning outside, loud as a firework. Liv raced out onto the courtyard, and found Tabitha punching a stone block in the wall. Laika was barking unhappily in the keep.

  ‘What was that?’ Liv said in shock, looking around the courtyard. There were smoking black marks on the cobbles. The others watched from the open door. Tabitha was busy laying into the curtain wall. Her thudding punches sent chips of stone flying. Liv stepped closer. ‘Tabitha, what was that?’

  ‘Lightning,’ she replied, stepping back from the wall. ‘From inside me.’

  ‘Lightning?’ said Liv, disbelieving. Tabitha shrugged. Her grey knuckles were white with stone dust.

  ‘Like he said, I’m a freak.’

  ‘Chris was talking out of his arse,’ Jim said from the doorway, shaking a sore hand. He had red knuckles. ‘He didn’t mean what he said.’

  ‘No, I did,’ Chris replied, rubbing his sore jaw. Will had to hold Jim back from hitting him again.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Chris!’ Liv yelled at him. ‘Can you make this any worse?’ Chris shrugged. ‘Don’t rise to it,’ she told Tabitha, who was walking back towards the door.

  ‘Fuck him,’ Tabitha said simply. She turned her gaze from Chris to Will. ‘So we need riot gear from the police station?’

  ‘We do,’ Will replied.

  ‘Right. So let’s go,’ she said. She pushed past Chris to get back inside the keep. Liv smiled.

  ‘I’m not going out there,’ said Chris, standing in the doorway as the others followed Tabitha back inside.

  ‘Yeah, we know,’ Tabitha replied, picking up an assault rifle from the stack in the corner. ‘I think we’ll manage without you,’ she assured him. Chris stared at her as she crouched down with Laika for a while, stroking her sides to calm her down.

  ‘You just r-run along upstairs and survive while we’re gone,’ Liv told Chris, on her way back inside. ‘Like a rat.’

  ‘Watch the street corners,’ said Will, heading out in front with his gun raised. The town centre was silent as a grave. The only sounds were their footsteps and tense shallow breaths. They wore the army vests they’d taken from the soldiers, though they felt strangely light and thin for body armour. Jim had suggested that the vests weren’t much good at stopping spiders, which was why the soldiers had died with them on. They had to be better than nothing, though.

  ‘Shout up if you see a spider,’ said Will. ‘And tell us if you’re going to shoot. That way we’re not all wasting bullets on the same one.’ They stayed close and moved through town together, watching the roofs and checking down side streets. Everywhere on the roads there were crinkled old sheets of newspaper, flapping and tumbling in the wind. Tabitha looked down at a loose front page that simply declared INVASION. The ink was too rain-smudged to read the rest. The photo showed a dead spider on a road, with a soldier standing beside it.

  ‘Tabitha, stay close,’ said Will, looking back at her. Tabitha jogged on back to them, checking the street behind them.

  ‘There, on the l-left!’ said Liv, raising her rifle. ‘I’ll take it!’ a spider came creeping towards them from behind an abandoned car, and then scuttled out quickly once it was close. Liv knelt down on the road and steadied her rifle scope on the spindly silver shape approaching. Her rifle cracked. The thing dropped dead.

  ‘Shot!’ said Will, grinning. Liv felt his hand on her shoulder. ‘Right, let’s pick up the pace,’ he said, jogging on. ‘The noise is going to bring them all out to look. Anyway, it’s not far to the police station.’

  Tabitha was first through the door into the station, and closed it after the others once they were inside. There didn’t seem to be any sign of spiders in here.

  ‘Are you sure they keep the riot gear in here?’ said Jim quietly, looking around the gloomy building.

  ‘I’m positive,’ Will replied. As Liv and Tabitha wandered ahead into the reception area, Will took Jim to one side. ‘So er, how’s the project coming along?’ he said quietly.

  ‘What project?’ Liv said impatiently.

  ‘Never mind,’ Will told Jim. Jim tapped his nose. Liv glared at Will suspiciously as he walked on ahead into the murky reception. ‘Right. Liv, come with me and we’ll try downstairs,’ said Will. ‘You two, search the rooms up here please. And be careful.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Jim, following Tabitha down the corridor.

  ‘Seriously, what project?’ Liv asked Will, as they headed downstairs.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Will said dismissively, leading the way.

  Jim and Tabitha stuck together as they searched dark grey offices and store rooms; they kept their rifles raised and watched one another’s backs as they edged down the main corridor.

  ‘Keep an eye out for first aid kits and things,’ Tabitha suggested.

  ‘Good idea,’ Jim replied quietly. Tabitha saw how wide his eyes were in here, even in the grey half-light of the building. He was petrified.

  ‘There’s only three rooms left,’ she told him, trying to ease his mind as he opened the first door. ‘This is the smallest police station I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Have you seen a lot of police stations in your time?’ said Jim, grinning.

  ‘Oh no, not at all,’ she replied with a smile. ‘I�
��ve only seen them on TV really.’

  ‘Well, I’ve only seen this one station,’ Jim replied. ‘A good few times though,’ he admitted.

  ‘Really? What did you do?’

  ‘Got drunk,’ he said simply, scratching his white stubble. ‘Drink never agreed with me when I was your age. Got me into all kinds of situations.’ Tabitha didn’t know what to say; that she was sorry to hear it? That it was all behind him now? She let the silence hang in the air between them.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Jim. ‘Well, there’s nothing in here,’ he concluded, searching the darkness in the first room. ‘Do you think –

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Tabitha blurted, and spun around and shot. The spider shrieked and threw itself back against the wall in the corridor. Its legs kicked and writhed in the air. Silver blood gushed from the gunshot wound. Tabitha got in close, wrestled its limbs and shoved her knife deep into its head. The spider shuddered and stopped moving, dead legs curling in.

  ‘Are you guys alright?’ Will said breathlessly, running up the stairs down the corridor.

  ‘It’s ok,’ Tabitha assured him, stepping aside for him to see the spider. ‘We took care of it.’

  ‘We should all be sticking together,’ Will suggested.

  ‘What sorry?’ Tabitha replied, her ears ringing from the gunshot.

  ‘We should all stay together,’ Will repeated.

  ‘No it’s fine, really,’ Tabitha assured him. ‘We’ll get this done faster if we stay in pairs.’ Will glanced from her to the spider and nodded reluctantly, and headed back down the corridor to speak with Liv.