by Jack Lewis
The biggest shock was in the centre of the room. Sat on a woodmen stool, with mute infected surrounding him, was a boy. He stared down at the ground. Blood matted his hair, and I saw that the palm of his right hand was covered red. To his right, on one of the walls, was a hand print the size of a boy’s that looked fresher than the rest.
“Ben?” I said.
The boy lifted his head. His face has dirty and his hair was stuck to his face by a mixture of sweat and blood. There were rings around his eyes, but there was no doubt it was Ben. I felt relief rush through me and flood my chest.
The infected strained. Their line of chain screeched through the stainless steel rings and then it ran out of length and jerked them back. They opened their mouths to scream, but despite their efforts nothing but silence came out. I walked into the centre of the room toward Ben, and when I reached him, he stood up. I put my arm around him and hugged him.
“Are you okay?” I said.
Ben held up his hand. A deep gouge ran across his right palm, and dark lines of blood had dried around it.
“Did he hurt you?”
“He made me put my hand on the wall. There was another boy here too, but Shawn took him away.”
I felt the heat of anger start to rise. I thought about the salted limbs in the living room downstairs. Shawn was killing people and eating them, that much was obvious. If we hadn’t noticed him prowling near us earlier, then we would never have followed him and found his nightmare house. He would have killed Ben.
I’m going to tear his heart out, I thought.
The burning anger turned into a bonfire. I felt my cheeks flush with blood, and I gripped the knife as if I was trying to snap it in two. I didn’t know if it was anger at Shawn or if it was anger at myself for being a lousy protector, but the effect was the same. The flames of rage poured over me and scorched me.
I walked by Mel in the doorway.
“Watch him,” I said.
My boots boomed on the staircase. I reached the lobby and walked toward the living room. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. The time for self-control was long behind me now, replaced by madness and adrenaline.
When I stepped into the living room, I stopped. I looked around. The chair was empty, and a breeze blew in the room from the open window. Reggie was on the floor, his face pressed into the floorboards, with blood running from his temple.
Chapter 18
A trickle of blood ran down his skin, hitting channels of wrinkles as it drew a red line down his cheek and then onto the curve of his chin. Reggie’s eyes were unfocused, and he sank into the couch and let it take his weight.
Mel found a washcloth in the kitchen. She took a bottle of water out of her rucksack, put the washcloth over the lid and tipped it over. With delicate swabs she cleaned Reggie’s head, the wash cloth getting redder as she worked. I walked over to the window and pulled on it. The wooden frame resisted at first, then gave way with a whine and slid down to the window sill. The sharp breeze dropped immediately.
“Think he went far?” I said.
Mel lifted the cloth away from Reggie.
“Guy’s an Olympic sprinter or something,” she said.
Reggie’s head wobbled as he tried to focus on Mel.
“How do you… know about the Olympics?” he said.
He slurred his words. He must have been concussed from whatever Shawn had done to escape. We needed to get him back to Charlie so that the scientist could take a look at him.
Mel smiled.
“Because dad and I stayed in a house for a week once. It was the longest we ever stayed in one place. He took the master bedroom and I took the kid’s room, and it just so happened that a sports-crazy boy lived there and he had tons of books. I had to pass the time somehow, so I read about the Olympics and the World Cup and Wimbledon.”
“Wimbledon. Huh. Hate tennis,” said Reggie.
Ben stood by my side at the windowsill. There was just an inch separating us, and it seemed that even that was too much distance for him. He hadn’t said much since we found him, and I was starting to get worried. We needed to take him out of this house, but we had to have a plan first.
“Got a sec?” I said to Mel.
She nodded, and stood up. I walked across the room and went to leave, when Ben grabbed my shirt.
“Stay here with Reggie,” I said.
Reggie lifted his hand in the air. His eyes glazed over. Shawn had really given him a walloping.
“But Kyle,” said Ben.
“Just give me a minute. We’re only going into the hall.”
I shut the door behind me. In the hallway, the pictures on the walls stared back at me. One showed a lonely bridge that looked decades away from collapse. Others were of crumbling country walls and remote mountains. It was a bleak landscape, and I was sure that it was local.
I kept my voice low.
“We need a plan. It makes me edgy that Shawn’s out there, but something tells me that the crazy little bastard knows enough to stay away from us.”
Mel settled down on the bottom step of the staircase. Blood stained her fingertips from cleaning Reggie’s wound.
“So what’s there to decide then? We need to get back to Lou and the others.”
“But I just don’t know. Maybe Shawn’s dangerous, maybe not.”
“He’s definitely dangerous, Kyle. It’s just whether that danger is gonna be directed at us. Like you said, he probably knows enough to keep his distance.”
“I can’t get my head straight.”
Usually, when I needed to make a decision, a single choice cried out at me. My decisions weren’t always the best, but at least I made them with conviction. This time it was different. It felt like I was the one who had taken a blow to the head. Like my confidence was off-kilter and my thinking skills were marbles spinning across a room.
Maybe it was time for me to face facts. I had stepped up as leader because, after Bleakholt, the crisis had demanded it. Things were in disarray back then. Most people had spent hours fighting the undead, and nearly everyone had watched a loved one die in the soil. On top of that their leader was gone and their settlement was unsafe. I had stepped up because I had to.
Being a good war time leader didn’t mean I could move things forward in times of peace though. Hell, you only had to look at Churchill to see that some leaders prospered under certain situations. I had my limitations, and it was time that I accepted them. I needed to stop trying to decide things for people. Who the hell was I to decide whether we should stay at camp, or leave? They needed to decide for themselves, and then whatever the decision was, I’d have to stick by it.
“Listen,” I said. “I think it’s time I stopped giving all the answers. After all, doesn’t seem like I’m leading us into paradise, does it? When I saw the helicopter, I guess I just thought that…I don’t know. That there was something else out there. That it was worth chasing.”
Mel gave a faint smile.
“It was. It is. Hell, I’ve never seen a helicopter in person in my life. Think of that, Kyle. We had to come find it.”
I felt weak. My stomach turned on itself, and my arms felt heavy. I just wanted to sink to the floor for a while and close my eyes.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Take all of this on. The people, the camp, Ben. It’s all getting too much.”
“No shit, Kyle.”
Mel sat with her chin resting on her hand and her back bent forward . For a second, she reminded me of Lou. She was different, though. Her face looked younger than Lou’s, but the way she carried herself was much older.
“You keep it together pretty well,” I said.
Mel patted the step next to her.
“Come sit here a sec.”
I joined her on the step. We sat so close our shoulders touched, and it reminded me of being with Lou by the tree when she was on watch. I was glad of the con
tact now; it reminded me that I was still here, that I was still a human being who was alive and could feel things.
“I’m gonna tell you something, Kyle. And I want you to make me a promise.”
“Depends what it is,” I said.
“Just promise me.”
I nodded.
“I’ll give you a conditional promise. Because I don’t know what you’re asking yet.”.
Mel grinned. “Okay, whatever. Just promise me this; that when I tell you something, you won’t ever ask me about it or bring it up again. Once these words leave my mouth, you listen to them, understand them, and then let them fade away. Because I’m only saying this to make you feel better.”
I tapped her knee with my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Sure,” I said.
Mel sighed. “Okay. Here goes.” She sighed again, a long trailing breath. Then she looked away from me, at the floor. “This is the thing, Kyle. You came to my tent back in camp and you started talking about Justin. About how you think he’s still alive.”
“Mel, I – “
“Just hear me out. I told you that I didn’t give a shit about him. That I screwed Peter Jenkins and Kieron because I don’t care about Justin.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” I said.
Mel pressed her thumb into her calf muscle and pivoted her hand, as if she were trying to drill the digit into her skin.
“It wasn’t quite true. Everything I said.”
Her voice was low now, and she wouldn’t look at me.
“So Pete and Kieron then. You didn’t...”
“Oh, I slept with them. But it wasn’t because I hate Justin. It’s because when I think of him, it feels like every single cell in my body is screaming at me. It’s agony, Kyle. I close my eyes and I see Justin walking across the plains like he’s some big fucking hero. I don’t see his face anymore, I see the back of his head. So it’s not that I hate him, it’s that I need to forget him. If I don’t, it’s gonna tear me open.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. She shrugged me off and looked at me, and her eyes burned.
“How could the selfish bastard just abandon me?”
“He didn’t. We had bigger things to think about. The picture doesn’t end at me and you. Think about everyone else.”
“But what about me? A bunch of strangers meant more to him than I did. I miss him so much that I could be sick. But you know what, Kyle? I’m done. I’m not gonna let myself get attached to anyone. From now on, everything is about survival. Fuck Justin.”
“You don’t mean that,” I said.
She shook her head. I could tell that something had left her, as if a tiny part of her resolve had drained away and left her that bit more vulnerable.
“No. Guess not.”
***
Ben sprinted across the open fields, his eyes fixed in one direction. He didn’t see the rock on the ground until it was too late, and by that point his foot had stumbled on it and he fell to the floor. At least he managed to put his arms out in front of him before he hit the dirt.
By the time I caught up to him, Charlie had seen us. He reached Ben before I did and he helped him up off the floor. Ben gave the scientist a hug.
“Missed you, buddy,” said Charlie. He looked at me and mouthed the words ‘is he okay?’
I nodded.
“How’s Lou?”
Charlie let out a sigh. He led us over to the bush. Lou was on her stretcher. Her forehead was dripping with perspiration, but her cheeks were chalky pale. Charlie had changed her bandage, though it was debateable whether wrapping denim around a broken leg was stellar medical treatment. I longed for the days of the old health system. The waiting times were long, but at least treatment didn’t mean a wooden plank in the middle of a field, with a one-armed scientist feeding you whiskey.
“She’s not at her best,” said Charlie. “Hasn’t said a word in hours. Not one I could understand, anyhow. This is reaching breaking point, Kyle. She needs help.”
“There’s nothing we can do?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Clean her wound a little. Make sure she’s drinking. I hate to talk about it like this, but if I was putting my pay packet on a bet, it wouldn’t be on her side.”
I looked away into the distance. Less than a mile away, a large grey rock stuck thirty feet into the air. Something drifted up into the sky behind it. It looked like smoke, but the trail was so thin and light coloured that it must have been a cloud.
“Jesus,” said Charlie. “Reggie looks like crap.”
Mel and Reggie had reached us. As soon as they got here, Reggie sank down onto the floor. On the walk back from the house he had seemed to perk up a little; his eyes focussed, his words were straight rather than slurred.
I walked over to him. He hung his head forward so far he looked like he was about to tip over.
“Okay, pal?” I said.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Reggie,” I said.
He lifted his head. I wasn’t prepared for how he would look. His face was bright red, like a coal smouldering in a blacksmith’s forge. I put my hand to his skin and felt his heat warm me. When I pulled my hand away, his sweat covered it.
“Is this normal for concussion?” I said.
Charlie walked over to us. “If this is concussion, then I’m a stalker’s uncle.” He lifted Reggie’s hand. “Look.”
Two little dots were on Reggie’s hand. The skin around them was swallow and red, as though it was filling with blood and ready to burst. The bites were an oval shape.
“It was back in the sewer,” I said. “I heard him cry out when a rat bit him.”
“I’d love to give you good news, but this looks like he’s got rat bite fever,” said Charlie.
“Is that actually a thing?” said Mel.
Charlie lifted Reggie’s hand higher. “Look at him.”
“So what do we do?” I said. “Wait. Let me have a guess. We get him antibiotics.”
Charlie gave a grim nod.
I stood up and kicked the muddy grass in front of me.
“Well that’s great. Because we know how plentiful they are, don’t we?”
We had rat bites and broken legs. Our rucksacks were almost empty, and our moods were darkening faster than the late afternoon sky. I looked at Lou on her stretcher and Reggie with the sweat pooling on his face, and I knew that we only had one choice.
“We’re gonna have to head back,” I said.
We were all silent. Mel knelt beside Lou and zipped her coat up to her chin. Charlie held the back of his palm to Reggie’s forehead.
“Fire,” said Ben.
I turned around.
Ben pointed over to the east.
“Something’s on fire.”
Sure enough, the plumes drifting in the sky were the fumes from a fire. It was the same patch that I had dismissed as a cloud, but there was no doubt about it now. The hulking rock shielded the source of the smoke from my view, but I knew there weren’t many things that it could be. The towns were far behind us and Scotland wasn’t known as a country of spontaneous wildfires.
Charlie stood up.
“What do you think it is?”
“It’s the helicopter,” I said.
Chapter 19
Sometimes things became more noticeable in their absence. Gone were the days where smoke pumped out from the brick chimneys of warehouses and factories. Cars exhausts were rusting away, having fallen out of use in the years since car keys turned in ignitions. Not even cigarettes or vapour pens sent their white plumes into the air. The only smoke a person was likely to see these days was from the campfire of a fellow traveller, and in that way, smoke acted as a warning. It was a sign that a stranger was in the area and that a change in route was needed.
The smoke we saw from behind the rock wasn’t from a camp fire. It was grey and thick. It twisted up into a waiting sky and then spread wide across it, making it look like a wispy forest floa
ting amongst the clouds.
We took a wide path so that we could get a clearer view of what was behind the rock without getting any closer than we needed. Mel helped me with Lou’s stretcher, walking in front of me with one end of the wooden plank in her grip. Reggie moved at a stumbling pace, his skin grey and wet with sweat. Charlie held Ben’s hand and led the boy along.