Edge of Chaos

by Jack Lewis

  Her voice was scratchy and high pitched. It reminded him of the time James ran away from the cliffs and told everyone he’d seen a man submerged under the waves.

  He knew how she felt, in a way. After dad died, there was a time when everyone on the island told him and James how sorry they were, and what a great guy dad was. It made it worse. People grieved in their own ways, and the worst thing you could do to a fresh wound was to rip off the bandage. The tragedy hadn’t hit Bethelyn yet but when it did, it was going to smash the life out of her.

  “How did the infection get here?” he said. “Why now?”

  “The storm. Golgoth was safe because it was remote. Now that we’re stuck on this crumbling shithole, the remoteness is going to screw us over. We need to get off the island.”

  Someone screamed outside. Bethelyn grabbed a brass poker from next to the fireplace.

  “We can’t go yet,” said Ed. “We need a plan.”

  Bethelyn gripped the poker so hard her knuckles whitened. She looked tense enough to snap in two. At the same time, life had drained out of her; her eyes were dead, her skin pale.

  “I’m not gonna waste time debating. In council meetings Gordon rambled on about the infection, about what to do if it ever hit us. We kitted the town hall basement with everything from firelighters to flares.”

  “I don’t wanna sit in a cellar and wait for everything to go to hell.”

  “Look around you, Ed. You don’t have to wait. Hell’s already found us.”

  Ed was going to grab the knife, but it seemed wrong to carry the weapon Bethelyn had used to kill her daughter. He went into the kitchen and picked a fresh one off the rail.

  “I don’t know, Beth. It doesn’t feel like we have options.”

  “There isn’t just food in the cellar,” said Bethelyn. “We wanted to be clever about it. We didn’t want to be like those idiots on the news who die in their underpants when infected smash through their windows. The cellar is full of guns.”

  “Guns?”

  “Farmer’s shotguns. A couple of hunting rifles from the Reilly Estate. A confiscated handgun. It’s better than stabbing them with a butter knife.”

  Ed nodded. “We have our plan.”

  “Yep, but we need the keys.”

  “You don’t have any?”

  “Gordon was a bastard. Wouldn’t let them out of his sight. I asked him 'what do we do if you’re dead?' Know what he said? ‘If I’m dead, you’ve already been rotting for days.’”

  Yeah, he could imagine the old man saying that. Gordon called round his house once, soon after James had gone. He tried to convince Ed to move out of his house and lodge with one of the families on the island. He didn’t pretend he was doing it for Ed’s own good; he wanted to use the Furness home as a store. Ed told him to fuck off.

  He perched on the edge of the settee. The arm of it bent under his weight, having worn away through years of use. It was one of the many things that faded away and was never replaced.

  “It didn’t look good when I was at his house,” said Ed.

  “You went there?”

  He nodded. “When you were out. Before…I needed to get my head together.”

  “Of course, you told me already. My head is fucked.”

  “Are you sure you can do this? That you don’t want to – “

  Bethelyn’s face burned red and she strode across the room. She slapped him across the face. His skin stung, and anger flashed through him. He fought it, letting it wear away until soon all he felt was pain.

  “I don’t want to hear another damn word about it. Do you understand? I can’t hear it, I can’t talk about it. Promise me.”

  The last two words choked out of her mouth so pathetically they could have been grunts. Her eyes filled to the brim, ready to spill with the slightest nudge.

  He realised he was wrong. He didn’t have the slightest clue what she was going through. Dad dying was one thing, but Ed hadn’t had to kill him. He had no idea of the hell she was going through, and it was her business how she dealt with it.

  If thinking practically was what got her through this, he wouldn’t take it away from her. “I promise,” he said.

  “Let’s go.”

  The absence of horror made the streets eerier. There was no noise, no infected, no blood. The wind had stilled, as though it were catching a breath from hammering the roofs and walls of Golgoth. The village looked as it did on any given morning.

  A man ran out from a house in front of them. Ed gripped the knife. Did he have the guts to use it? Ice froze around his legs and wouldn’t let him move. Bethelyn lifted her poker to waist height.

  It was Steve Cheshunt, a dairy farmer. He stopped ten feet in front of the two of them and sunk to his knees. His right ear had been ripped off. He looked at them pleadingly. When he opened his mouth, Ed recoiled in horror. Steve’s tongue had been torn out.

  Vicki Cheshunt approached her husband. Ed couldn’t tell if she was infected or not. When she sprang onto Steve’s back and buried her teeth in his neck, he knew for sure. She sounded like a dog gorging on meat.

  An old man emerged from their left. Ed backed away from the husband and wife in front of him and readied his knife. The old man fixed his stare on Ed.

  “Gordon?”

  His face was so changed that he hadn’t recognised the man. The blood had drained out of him, leaving his skin a mess of wrinkles and cuts.

  Ed tried to move, but his legs may as well have been made from wood. He willed them to fall under his control but they ignored him, leaving him feeling numb except for the rising panic in his chest.

  The old man ignored Ed and pounced on Bethelyn. She pushed him away with her left hand, screaming in pain as she made contact. A shock zapped Ed’s chest, and the words flew through his head without giving him time to process them.

  She’s been bitten.

  Steve tried to scream, but only a gurgle came out. His wife traced her teeth around his neck and gave him the last love bite he would ever receive.

  The ice around Ed’s unfroze, and he found himself able to move. He didn’t know what to do. Should he help Steve? Or was he already dead? Maybe the bite on his ear had doomed him.

  Instead, he grabbed Gordon’s shoulder and spun him round. The man growled, spraying Ed’s face with blood. Fighting the rise of bile in his stomach, he lifted his knife. With one sharp movement, he jabbed it through Gordon’s eye socket.

  The crunch sent tremors of nausea through him. The sound of it…I’m gonna throw up.

  Bethelyn raised her poker and faced Vicki Cheshunt. With a grunt, she brought it down in an arc, puncturing Vicki’s brain.

  “Did she bite you?” asked Ed.

  Bethelyn held up her left hand. Blood covered her fingers, but she hadn’t been bitten. The blood was from when she punched the wall. Thank God for that.

  “This is so fucked,” she said.

  More shouting marked the appearance of a man and a woman, who ran by the wall next to Steve Cheshunt’s house. They met Ed and Bethelyn in the middle of the street.

  He flinched. More infected? No. they’re not. Their cheeks had colour, and their eyes looked alive. He tried to relax. It was Judith Plum and Gary Buckley, and they weren’t going to him.

  Judith stepped over Gordon’s body as if it were an obstruction in the street. Gary bent over and gave four dry heaves.

  “Did you get bitten?” said Bethelyn.

  Gary shook his head.

  “Nope,” said Judith. She wore a pearl necklace around her neck, bronze bangles on her wrists, and an array of rings on her fingers. It was like she’d put on her entire jewellery collection, scared it would get stolen if she left her house.

  “What now?” said Ed. His legs had thawed, but his brain was still frozen.

  Bethelyn wiped the poker on her pants. “We get the guns. Find out who else is alive. Get a boat and get the hell off this place.”

  Ed looked up the street, toward the town hall at the top. There, a ch
annel of water separated from a puddle and followed a drainage line in the street, before mixing with Steve and Vicky Cheshunt’s blood.

  Chapter Eight

  Heather

  The sky looked so mean she could almost hear it growl. Heather was standing at her bedroom window. The storm had stopped, thank God, but not until it emptied days of rain over the green fields and concrete streets that formed the Capita lands.

  Behind the Dome, black smoke curled into the air. Her eyes burned, but it wasn’t from smoke. It was from a night of lying on her bed staring at the ceiling, with her thoughts turning over like a cement mixer.

  They’d only met each other for minutes, but the face of the boy in Cresstone burned a silhouette in her mind. It was a mistake to leave him, and she hoped she wasn’t too late to correct it.

  Maybe if she went back to Cresstone she’d find him there in the same room, surrounded by more rotten apples cores. She could get him out of there and take him to Wes. He had good contacts, and he’d know how to get the boy to the Resistance. Her part would be over, and she could salvage whatever was left of her conscience.

  Dressed and at the front door, she pulled a pair of rubber waders up to her knees. The material was thick, and it would let her get through flooded areas without worrying about disease ridden water. The last thing she needed was days on the toilet. She picked up a crowbar that was leaned against the wall, hoping she wasn’t going to have to use it.

  At Cresstone, she found the waders were a good call. The non-stop drenching washed the debris from the streets and carried it along to drains that became blocked. As the rain carried on unabated, the water levels rose until it reached to the top of her waders.

  The stench of sewage hung in the air. Heather got the sense that a significant dose of disease floated in the flood water. She looked across the village ahead of her and then at her waders, and she hoped the rubber would be enough to keep the water out.

  She pushed away the selfish thought and sloshed through the water. A soiled tide lapped against her, and she felt like she was in one of her old nightmares.

  It was one she used to have as a kid in the years before she took up sports and became popular. In the dream, she was in the middle of a swimming pool.

  At one end, where the ladders hung, a group of boys and girls watched her paddle. Their grins stretched impossibly wide across their faces. They shouted things at her, but the words twisted on route and became nothing but grunts.

  One of the kids pulled up a metal gate, to reveal a tunnel. It stretched out beyond the pool, and a shape swam through the darkness. Heather’s heart lodged in her throat.

  Shark. A goddamn shark!

  it was grey and long, with a jagged fin that pointed out of the water like the mast of a pirate ship. It slinked through water that was murky enough to keep it a silhouette.

  I need to escape. She tried to get out of the pool, but the water slowed her until she was frozen in place, helpless as the shark got closer.

  She closed her eyes and let the dream dissolve. As horrible as the water in Cresstone was, it wouldn’t hide any sharks beneath it. Come on, idiot. Stop being scared.

  It took her longer to get through the village than she liked. At one point, she lost her balance and disturbed the water, splashing a drop of it onto her face. She reached the street next to the one where she met the boy, and she was glad the trip was nearly over. I’m having a long, hot bath when I get home.

  She turned the corner. Something was wrong. Across a street that resembled a council-house Venice, the boy was standing near a house. He faced away from her. Water rose to his back and to his shoulders. He was tugging on something, but what?

  He flinched as she waded over to him. He splashed his hand in the water. Was he going to try and run?

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

  A chill gathered on her spine. The village brooded silently, as though it was waiting for something to happen. She and half expected a shark fin to tear through the river of sewage behind her.

  “I’ve come to take you back,” she said. “I can help you.”

  “You can’t help me.”

  Why wouldn’t the boy look at her? “What’s wrong?”

  “My foot’s stuck,” he said.

  “What on?”

  “What do you care? Leave me alone.”

  She looked at the brown water and she was glad she hadn’t eaten breakfast. What am I doing? She reached into the water, and a shock of cold covered her skin.

  She grabbed the boy’s foot. There was something wrapped around it. How had he gotten stuck? Whatever it was, it was wrapped so tightly round his foot that she needed both hands to get him free.

  “Hold this,” she said, and gave him her crowbar.

  She was ready to free him when she something snagged on her waders. Thinking it was underwater debris, she kicked her leg back, but it dragged on her. As she tried to shake herself free the force of the thing on her wader became stronger. What the hell is it?

  She lifted her leg away. The water around her bubbled, and something shot in front of her with a great splash.

  It was an infected. She gasped, letting out a sound that would have been a scream had she not choked most of it back.

  It was a male infected. His skin was wrinkled from the water, and brown drips ran off his hair and over his face. He fixed a bestial stare on Heather and opened his mouth to show teeth not far from falling out. He cried out in desperation, and lurched across the water to get at her.

  The water was disturbed as infected rose from all around them. The surface of the flood reservoir lapped and splashed as bloated creatures waded toward her.

  The infected closest to her came within an inch of grabbing her arm. She pushed him away and held her hand out to the boy. He pressed the crowbar into her palm, and as the infected strained for her again she swung the metal at his head. The infected’s neck snapped back, but it reached for her again.

  Heather tensed her arm and guided the metal toward his skull, connecting with a blow that snapped through bone. I’ll never get used to that sound.

  “You need to get yourself free,” she said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

  “What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” said the boy. It was the first real show of emotion she’d seen from him.

  She handed him back the crowbar and again tried to get him free, but whatever was around his foot didn’t want to let him go.

  The infected around them moved through the water, all of them homed in on the only two humans stupid enough to be there. It would take them a while to close the gap, but they would. Heather had nothing but distance as her defence, and every passing second eroded it.

  “I need to get at whatever’s got your foot.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Don’t look behind you.”

  She paused. Kim flashed in her mind. What if something happened to Heather, and Kim was alone?

  This is stupid, it’s dangerous…but I can’t leave him here again.

  She took a deep breath. I’m an idiot. Am I really going to do this? She blew it out and took a deeper one. She held it in, removed her mask and handed it to the boy.

  She opened her eyes underwater. The water stung her eyeballs, but she saw the boy’s foot through the murky soup. A thick thread of ivy had wrapped around it. In a few seconds, she was able to untie some of it. Pressure built in her chest. Can’t hold it much longer.

  She broke the surface like a whale jumping out of the sea, and the water splattered around her. She attached the mask to her face and sucked in a lung-full of air.

  A shot of panic hit her. The infected were closer.

  “Swing at anything that moves,” she said through the mask.

  “Get a move on,” said the boy.

  She took another breath and sunk once again into the flood. She opened her eyes underwater, gritting her teeth through the burn. It was like being in the swimming ba
ths again and feeling the chlorine burn her, except there was the real possibility she could get a bacterial infection from the sewage.

  Away from them, two heads bobbed under the water. Her eyes adjusted, revealing two infected children walking through the water.

  She worked faster. She unwound the last of the ivy. The boy thrashed in the water, nearly kicking her face.

  She stood out of the water, only to see an infected woman with swollen bingo-winged arms stretching out towards the boy. Heather’s chest burned again. I need air.