Edge of Chaos

by Jack Lewis

  The four walls trapped her in a small space with nothing but her cowardice and her anger. Why hadn’t she done anything? She had let him just take her away. What if it had been Kim?

  Her shoulder muscles tightened into knots and a lump the size of a tennis ball grew in her throat. She hated Charles and the Capita, and she despised herself more because she was too scared to do a damn thing about it.

  I let him take her.

  She swung her arm out and pounded on the shelf. She kicked her legs and flung her arms until everything toppled over and crashed onto the floor. She didn’t care about the mess or the noise, nor the fact the children outside could hear her. She wanted to smash and destroy things until she was empty.

  When the haze cleared, she ran her hand through her hair and smoothed it. She opened the door, walked up to the blackboard, and began writing.

  “So, class,” she said, trying to still her shaking voice.

  “Miss?”

  “Let me finish. Do you remember our first question of the day? About when the Capita was made?”

  “Eight hundred years ago, Miss,” said a boy.

  “No, Terry. It was seven years ago. Don’t believe the bullshit they tell you. The bullshit they make me teach.”

  The class muttered to each other. Heather’s temples pounded. I’ve gone too far. I need to think about Kim. But these kids…the shit they make them believe…

  Think about Kim.

  “Forget what I said,” she told them. “I was just being silly. Of course it was eight hundred years ago. That makes perfect sense, after all.”

  “Miss?”

  “What is it, Terry?”

  “Miss, there’s blood on your hand.”

  Chapter Three

  Heather

  Jenny’s pleading eyes followed Heather home. When she tried to shake the image away, Charles’s plague doctor mask thudded into her thoughts. The long, extending beak, black and pointed at the tip. The side-straps that twisted snake-like around his neck. He’d chosen his plague doctor mask to make himself scarier, and annoyingly, it worked.

  She tried to push him out of her mind. She tried to push Jenny away, because the look on the girl’s face as the bounty hunter led her away tore her apart. She needed to be strong for Kim. She thought about home and the vegetables they planted in their garden. Hopefully with the current crop they’d have enough food to make the journey away from the Capita and the shadow of the Dome.

  The rain fell in torrents and splattered onto the pavement and ran toward blocked drains. The drops fell in hundreds of thousands and hit Heather’s forehead so hard they hurt. If it carried on this way, her plants would get waterlogged.

  She arrived at the edge of a ruined estate. Terraced houses lined the streets. In the years leading to the outbreak, the council earmarked this estate for demolition. They never got the chance, and now these poorly insulated, grey houses had new occupants.

  The Capita knew about the seedy business here, but they let it pass. The houses the blackmarket traders didn’t use were filled with sick people; usually the ones the Capita couldn’t, or didn’t want to, treat.

  Walking through the dirty concrete streets of the estate brought a sense of dread in her head, but she didn’t have a choice. She needed tarpaulin to cover the plants with, or she’d lose the crop. A trader named Wes would have what she needed.

  She opened Wes’s office door. There were chairs in the corner, a grandfather clock leaning against one of the walls and a door on the furthest side of the room. The grandfather clock never ticked, and its pendulum never swung, so the antique block of wood was standing to attention as a silent guard.

  Wes was sitting behind a desk. He had combed his short hair forward, and his fringe stuck up into a quiff two inches too high. He wore a shirt and tie, with the knot so tight his Adam’s apple squirmed when he breathed. Underneath the desk, where his clients couldn’t see, Wes wore a pair of slack jogging pants. The guy was all about appearances, but he was a crook.

  He glanced at Heather and jerked his head to a row of chairs at the side of the room. She took a seat.

  A man with a less groomed appearance sat in front of Wes. Stains covered his brown chequered shirt, and his hair stuck out in tufts at the back. His knuckles were bloodied, his hands calloused. When she looked at him, the word ‘survivor’ popped into her head. He bent over the table as though under a great weight.

  Wes put a glass bottle on the table and tapped the lid with his index finger. “Lantus Levemir insulin, five hundred mils.”

  The man’s shoulders shook. “Thanks, Wes. You don’t know what this means to me,” said the man.

  “No, I don’t. That’s what you’re going to show me.”

  The man stuck a hand in his pocket. He moved it over the table in front of Wes and opened it. A circle of gold rested in his palm. “This is my wife’s.”

  Wes took the ring and twirled it in his fingers. “I didn’t know you were married.”

  “You never asked.”

  He dropped the ring on the table where it rolled a few inches toward the edge and clattered to a stop. “What good are trinkets? Show me what else you have.”

  The man stared across the room and out of the window to the rundown buildings and elephant grey concrete streets. “I don’t know.”

  Wes nodded at the man. “What’s that tucked in your belt?”

  “My Heckler?”

  “That’s right, the pistol. Police issue, right? Who’d you kill to get your mitts on it?”

  “My brother was in the force.”

  “He doesn’t need it anymore?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Wes made a beckoning gesture toward the pistol. “That’s better. Hand it over.”

  The man shrank back in his seat. It was harsh to take away the man’s protection, especially since he didn’t look to be a Dome resident. Maybe he lived in infected territory. Out there a clip full of bullets were the only thing that stopped you becoming an infected banquet.

  “C’mon, Wes,” she said. “Have a heart. A man needs his gun.”

  Wes shrugged his shoulders. His attitude didn’t surprise her; so cold. A useful friend to have, but a dangerous one.

  “You want the gun?” said the man.

  “That’s a lot of insulin.”

  “Fuck, what do you expect me to do? I’m screwed if I hand this over. You don’t know what it’s like out there. What am I supposed to fight them with? A broom handle?”

  Wes pushed himself away from the desk and crossed his legs. He wore saggy grey jogging bottoms. “You’re not a man with a wealth of choices. You can watch your daughter slip into a diabetic coma. Or…you hand over the gun, leave with the insulin, and find yourself a sharp stick.”

  The man pulled the pistol from his belt. There was a moment where Heather thought he might point it at Wes and make off with the insulin. Hell, it was something she would have considered. Survival was at a premium, and you paid whatever price you could.

  The man slammed the gun on the table. He stared at Wes as he snatched the bottle of insulin, never once breaking eye contact. The look in his eyes was so cold it froze the room.

  “Damien,” said Wes, in a softer voice.

  Damien’s face reddened. His jaw was big and curved, and his jawbone bulged when he gritted his teeth.

  “What, dickhead?”

  “If the Capita’s men find you with that, and you tell them where you got it, I’ll make you watch your daughter beg for her insulin.”

  Damien left, slamming the door behind him. Wes took a handheld mirror from a drawer in his desk. He held it to his face, turning his head to catch view of his hair. After working his fingers through his quiff, he put the mirror back in the drawer. He was at an age where he should have been more secure about his looks, but he was living proof people never get over the things that haunt them in their teens.

  He smiled at Heather. “Heather Castle, my favourite educator. Still feeding those gullible little shi
ts the Capita’s garbage?”

  “Still selling fake medicine to desperate fathers?”

  “One thing I admire about you Heather is you don’t bullshit me. At least not to yourself. We live in grim fucking times, and you’re one of the few who admit it. But the insulin was real. Give me some credit. Take a seat.”

  Heather joined him at the desk.

  “You hate coming here, don’t you?” he said.

  Yup, she hated it here. It wasn’t that she hated Wes; she didn’t condone what he did, but he was doing it to get by. She was no better. She fed lies to the Capita’s children for her own benefit.

  Still, as soon as their current crop was ready to harvest she and Kim could finish their Great Escape. They’d dry out as much food as they could to make it last longer and they’d get as far away from the Capita as possible. There had to be untouched places out there. Maybe an island off the mainland where the infection hadn’t reached.

  “It’s not my favourite place,” she said.

  “You look like someone turning their head while they clean up dog shit.”

  “I don’t think that way.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Think I can’t tell when you’re lying? I’ve known you too long, and too well, Heather. Why are you slumming it today?”

  She jerked her thumb toward the window. The sky darkened under the anger of the storm.

  “Everything’s gonna get waterlogged. I need something to cover my plants. Plastic or something. Tarpaulin, whatever you’ve got.”

  He scratched his chin. He gave a glance to a door behind him. Heather didn’t know what was behind the door, and she had never seen Wes go in there.

  “I don’t have anything at the minute,” said Wes. “I could tell my salvagers to keep an eye out.”

  “I can’t hang around. The storm’s only going to get worse.”

  “Sorry darling, jack-shit I can do. Why don’t you don’t move out here? This place is going to be independent from the Capita someday.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got Kim to think about.”

  “You’re a Capita shill.”

  Maybe, but not for much longer. “Shill or not,” she said, “You know this place can’t last. One night they’ll bust down your door while you’re tugging yourself off.”

  “We’re building a haven here, Heather.”

  “You’re building it on a fault line. Sooner or later it’s going to break apart and suck you in.”

  Wes laughed. It was a high pitched, a squeaky hinge in need of oil. “Listen. Go to Cresstone.”

  “The village?”

  “No, the musical. Yeah, the village. It’s a few miles east of here. There’s a bunch of tarpaulin tents in the centre from a village fete back before everything turned to shit. I don’t think the dead will mind if you dismantle a few.”

  Rain lashed onto the streets of Cresstone. It soaked Heather’s back from where her waterproof coat lining had perished, and numbness settled over her cold body. I’d give my arm to be at home now.

  Before the outbreak, Cresstone had been a dying village. A factory on the outskirts that produced sheet metal had gone bust, leaving half the population looking for a job and wondering how they were going to feed their families and pay their mortgages. That had set in motion the decay of a century old village.

  In an alleyway between two houses, a couple of infected shambled side by side, hands touching like lovers on a walk. Heather paid attention to the sounds of her steps. The torrential rain was enough to cover them.

  The sight of the infected raised her pulse, but she didn’t feel the utter panic they once brought on her. Just keep your mouth shut and sneak by them, how hard was that? The infected were slow and stupid. They became dangerous when you got even stupider.

  She threaded her way through narrow streets and long-abandoned cars until she reached the centre of the village, a paved area half the size of a football pitch. Tents covered it; some still standing, but most collapsed on the floor.

  Standing in front of a tent, she rolled the sleeves of her coat and started to detach the tarpaulin. Whoever put the tent together had tied impenetrable knots where the metal supports met the canvas. She unravelled them, her face growing hot as knot after sodden-knot fought against her.

  “Stupid goddamn thing,” she said, hitting one stubborn knot against the ground.

  She heard pattering sounds different from the rain, and a chill tickled the hairs on her arms. Her mind sprang to one conclusion; infected.

  Hmm. Can’t see any. Instead, an Alsatian dog took wary steps in her direction, its ears raised, and its fur dripping wet. It stared at Heather, transfixed.

  It seemed curious at first. As it got closer, its real expression became clear. It wrinkled its nose, and it curled its lips to show rows of yellowed teeth. Its wild eyes made it seem more wolf than dog.

  Shit. Kim had read to Heather from a book about dealing with wild animals, but what did it say? Why does my mind erase itself at the worst time?

  The dog thrust a wary paw forward, and she could sense its instinctive caution was evaporating.

  The worst thing to do would be to act scared. Animals knew fear was a sign of prey, and Heather couldn’t afford to give it that impression.

  “Piss off,” she said, testing her voice. Her words sounded alien in the silent estate.

  The dog craned its head to the side.

  Heather backed away. She glanced at the tarpaulin. She couldn’t leave without it, but she didn’t want to stay here.

  “For god’s sake, what do you want?”

  The dog backed away, flinching at her voice. Phew.

  Her momentary relief broke when the animal opened its mouth and let out a deep bark. The noise cut through the sounds of rainfall and boomed across the village centre.

  Her heart tried to hammer its way out of her chest. The dog gave three throaty barks. Heather picked a stone off the floor. With a firm grip and a tense arm, she launched it at the dog, intentionally missing its head. The dog jerked back. She rummaged for another rock, but the dog ran away. Thank god for that.

  Her relief lasted seconds. A figure moved at the edge of her vision. An infected walked in her direction. He stretched his twig-like arms in front of him. Rain-washed white hair clung to the side of his head, and he wore a denim jacket covered in patches. His dead eyes stared at Heather.

  An infected woman approached from across the square. Her caved-in chest revealed a rack of bones that threatened to snap through her weak skin. Another crept from the side of a van. He wore a skin-tight leather coat, and his oil-black hair spilled across his shoulders. His fingers were curled as though in rigor-mortis, despite the fact he wasn’t dead yet.

  More of them moved toward her from all directions, like they were drawn by an infected version of a dog whistle. She fought an overwhelming urge to run. So much for staying calm.

  She heaved the tarpaulin away from the metal support of the tent. Her arms ached, and panic set over her. More figures lurked in the distance, drawn by the barking.

  C’mon. Need to haul ass. She shook the tarpaulin. Water bounced onto the floor, and with one more tug she pulled it free. She tucked it under her arm and moved away from the centre.

  “Time to say my goodbyes.”

  As she ran over the splashed pavements, more of the infected lurched out of side streets and alleyways. Their clothes were ripped and faded, and their hair was slick with rain. Hunger burned in their eyes.

  As she ran by a house, she looked up. A wave of shock ran through her. There was a boy in the bedroom window. He peered through a gap in a pair of shabby curtains. Was it another infected? No, couldn’t be. He didn’t have the same darkness in his eyes.

  A group of infected closed in behind her. The way out of the village lay ahead, and beyond it, sitting underneath a grey sky, loomed the Dome. Somewhere in between was her house, where Kim waited. Yet, she didn’t move toward the way out.

  What am I doing?

  The words formed in her mind, bu
t they left as she ran toward the house. She walked in. The hallway was painted black and a cold draught blew through the house. Framed paintings lined the walls, but it was too dark to make out what they were. A damp smell grew stronger by the second. The house was tidy. In a simpler time, she’d have assumed the family had gone on holiday.

  She walked up the stairs, careful not to make her steps thud on the wood. She came to a bedroom door. The boy must have been beyond it. She set the tarpaulin on the landing and opened the door.