by Perrin Briar
“What’s wrong with him?” Jack said. “He hasn’t caught it too?”
“No,” Bill said. “Just an overdose of loyalty. We tried to feed him but he wouldn’t take anything we gave him. All he would do was sit by your side. Or, rather, on your stomach.”
“But you’re all okay?” Jack said.
“We’re fine,” Bill said. “Thanks to you.”
“I woke up and found everyone else unconscious,” Liz said. “It scared me, I can tell you. But when I saw you and the petals in your pockets I knew what I had to do. I made more of the paste and gave it to everyone every hour. They each woke up one by one.”
“Why didn’t the other medicines Father made work?” Jack said.
“It didn’t work because I assumed it was Ernest’s hat that had caused your mother to get ill,” Bill said, “but it wasn’t the hat at all.”
“What was it then?” Jack said.
“It was your flowers,” Bill said. “They were what got into Liz’s system. She’d breathed in their poison in a deep inhalation. That’s why she was affected first. The rest of us were affected much slower, the pollen gradually entering our systems. I don’t know why I was affected before Fritz or Ernest. It might have been down to fatigue, or maybe I was just more susceptible. Francis is smaller, so it’s logical it would affect him quickly.”
“How can you know it was definitely the flowers?” Jack said.
“Because I gave the flowers to some rats we caught,” Bill said. “They collapsed and died – too small to suffer the poison and live. We got lucky this time. This isn’t your fault, Jack. It could have happened to any one of us. Just goes to show you can live in a place for months and never really know anything about it.”
“How did you know the Greenie Stripie would cure us?” Jack said.
“Because of its properties,” Bill said. “It was while speaking with Ernest, when I mentioned even the most innocuous of things could cause us harm that I thought of your innocent-looking flowers. It was then that I deduced they had been the cause.”
“But if that’s true how come I was the last one to be affected?” Jack said. “I was the one who picked the flowers in the first place. Shouldn’t I have been first?”
“You would have,” Bill said, nodding, “if you hadn’t have spent so long up in the trees every day. You visited these particular flowers a dozen times over a period of a few weeks. You developed a resistance. I’m surprised you developed symptoms at all. It must have been a very powerful plant for it to have affected you the way it did.”
“This was all your fault, you little squirt,” Fritz said.
“And thanks to him we all came out of it too,” Bill said. “We’d all still be vegetables now if it wasn’t for Jack. Or worse. We might never have recovered.”
Jack got out of bed, his legs shaking under his weight, black spots spoiling his vision. He put his trousers on.
“Where are you going?” Liz said.
“I’m going to tear every one of those flowers out of the ground,” Jack said. “I know where they are.”
“You’ll never find them all,” Liz said.
“I can try,” Jack said.
“Leave them,” Bill said. “Just don’t go near them anymore. You never know what effect removing them might have. Every living thing here plays an important role. We don’t want to risk messing up the delicate nature of things. Besides, one day we might have need of them.”
“What would we need them for?” Ernest said. “In case we want to poison ourselves?”
“You never know,” Bill said.
Jack wobbled on his feet. He sat down on his bed.
“I dreamed I was back in Chucerne,” he said.
“It wasn’t a dream,” Bill said. “It was a memory.”
“A memory?” Jack said.
“The flower appears to make its victim experience hallucinations,” Bill said. “But not just any hallucinations. Images of the past, a specific memory, the happiest place and time we can recall.”
“But my memory wasn’t very happy,” Jack said. “Actually, it was pretty miserable.”
“Apparently it was happy on some level,” Bill said. “Maybe a self-realisation or moment of great importance in your life.”
“Did you all have a hallucination?” Jack said.
“Yes,” Liz said. “What’s interesting was it all occurred on the same two days in our past. The time when we decided to come to this island.”
“What does that mean?” Jack said.
“It probably doesn’t mean anything,” Ernest said.
“Or it might mean we made the right decision to come here,” Liz said. “We’re meant to be here.”
“That’s spooky,” Jack said.
Bill nodded.
“Spooky,” he said. “Or reassuring. We are where we’re meant to be.”
“I don’t know about you all,” Liz said “But I’m famished.”
“Peering over the abyss of death will do that to you,” Bill said.
“Shall we continue with the birthday celebrations?” Liz said.
“I hate to break this to you,” Bill said, “but it’s not your birthday anymore.”
“Yesterday doesn’t count,” Liz said. “Let’s pretend like it never happened.”
“Fine with me,” Bill said.
And so, a day late, but in high spirits, all six members of the Robinson family sat down to finish Liz’s birthday meal. This time, without presents.
What Happens Next?
The family has survived a dire sickness and things are only about to get worse! In their next adventure the Robinsons face a new type of enemy never seen before… Find out what it is in Book 5!
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About The Author
Perrin Briar is an English author best-known for his apocalypse series Blood Memory, Z-Minus, and The Swiss Family RobinZOM. He was born in Huntingdon, grew up in Norfolk, graduated from Bournemouth, worked in London, and then chucked it all in to live in South Korea.
He has written for BBC radio, and worked in the production and development departments of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
You can email him at [email protected] or tweet at @perrinbriar. He loves corresponding with fans, so don’t hesitate to contact him if you have a question!
Copyright © 2015 Perrin Briar
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published by Briar Patch Publishing.
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Visit www.perrinbriar.com.