THE PLAGUE WINTER
by Rich Hawkins
Copyright © Rich Hawkins 2016
All rights reserved
The right of Rich Hawkins to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters,
organisations and events portrayed in this novel are
either products of the authors’ imaginations
or are used fictitiously.
First published in 2016 by Infected Books
www.infectedbooks.co.uk
@infectedbks
Cover design by David Naughton-Shires
www.theimagedesigns.com
Rich Hawkins' website
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE
THE PLAGUE WINTER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY RICH HAWKINS
ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE
ALSO FROM INFECTED BOOKS
MONTH TWO
THE PLAGUE WINTER
When Eddie opened the door and stepped back, a spindly shape with too many teeth emerged from the house and crawled out into the rain. It was a woman in the filthy remnants of a summer dress, her blackened mouth gasping and her face slack and drooping upon her skull.
He stepped back until he was beyond the reach of her claws and corruption. She wheezed past sore lips and halted on her hands and knees, trembling and raw upon the tarmac of the car park. She looked up at Eddie as he raised the pistol, and her eyes were bloodshot and wild in their bone sockets. Skin shockingly pale. She reached for him, her mouth pleading.
Crack of the gunshot and the pistol bucked in his hand. The bullet caught the woman just below her left eye and exited through the back of her head. She uttered a strained gurgle from her throat, and died crawling towards him, one hand scraping at the ground while the other pawed at the hole in her face.
Eddie stepped away.
The silence in the rain. Soft patter upon his shoulders and hood. He pulled the tied cloth down from his nose and mouth and took in a breath that felt like the best he’d ever tasted. His hands trembled. The weight of his old bones. He moved one arm in its socket and his old joints were like rusted hinges and knots. When he looked at the woman and her ruined form, anger swelled behind his eyes and teeth. The back of his mouth watered with nausea. The taking of a life never got easier. Never would. And it would never end. Pestilence was in the land, and the plague would abide. The country belonged to the infected and the scavengers.
Smell of gunpowder in the damp air. He touched his face and then checked his clothes for the woman’s blood, but he was clean. He slumped and watched the woman for a while as the rain fell and the wind pulled at him from the surrounding fields.
***
The gunshot would bring visitors and he had to finish before they arrived. He moved to the doorway and stepped inside the house with the pistol awkward in his hands. Air pulled through the cloth over his mouth. All he could hear was his heart as he stood in the kitchen and eyed the doorway to the hallway and the stairs beyond. Rainwater dripped from his coat. If there were any infected upstairs they’d have descended to meet him by now.
He pulled down his hood and ran one finger over a worktop and it came away black with dust. The linoleum sticky with old stains. In one corner of the floor there was a puddle of some kind of mucus that smelled like rotten eggs.
Everything covered in dust. Rain fell against the window above a sink filled with dirty plates and bowls growing colonies of mould. Dead insects upturned in the windowsills. A clock ticked soundlessly upon a wall speckled with black rot. Eddie noted the time because he didn’t want to be caught out in the fields in the dark, and the prospect of spending a night in the house appealed only to the vague suicidal tendencies he’d been feeling since winter had arrived.
He listened to the house and the creaks between the walls. In the cupboards he found two tins of tomato soup and one of oxtail, a Mars bar, a packet of dried pasta and a tin of baby carrots, all of which he placed in the rucksack over his shoulder.
Deeper into the house, where the rooms smelled of old murder and bone marrow. The solemn daylight revealed the old things of a lost world. Skeletal remains piled in one corner like an offering. Blood-encrusted rags and bandages. Bookcases of tattered books. In the rooms where the curtains were drawn, he used his torch to pick through the darkness to the sound of the incessant rain on the roof. In a desk drawer he found packs of batteries, some birthday candles and a box of matches. They all went into the bag.
Eddie made sure not to look at the photos on the walls and high shelves and behind the glass doors of cabinets. It didn’t matter who had lived here. To think too much about the dead was to let his guard down, which would likely end with a bite or a scratch from some ravenous thing. And that would be that.
He climbed the stairway into the darkness and when he reached the landing he opened the curtains and flinched from the grey daylight. He opened the door to the master bedroom and in the dark inside he saw the thing that squirmed in the bed. He raised the pistol and froze. The torchlight revealed what remained of a man. The bed clothes damp with blood and other fluids. A putrid stink.
The man was emaciated and hairless, his pale skin glistening, and he extended a dripping hand towards Eddie. His face opened into a vertical slit and the skin peeled back to reveal teeth, slick-red cilia and the horror of a grinning skull all wet and sopping.
Eddie backed against the wall as red tendrils rose from under the stained blankets and climbed to almost the height of the ceiling, dancing and swaying like underwater plants. The tips of the tendrils opened and bloomed, flowering into pale suckers with purple innards and little teeth. Eddie didn’t react until they were almost upon him then fired the pistol once and hoped the bullet had found the man before he fled the room and slammed the door shut. He hunched over on the landing, spitting a bad taste from his mouth, his heart lurching and frail.
When the scratching began upon the other side of the door, he turned away and stumbled down the stairs then fled into the rain.
***
In the eighteen months since the start of the outbreak Eddie understood that no one was coming to help and the realisation was always followed with a knot of despair that hardened in his chest.
The house receded behind him. It was one of the few isolated cottages in the area, and the last one to be looted. After today he would have to look for supplies in the nearby villages, and that filled him with a dread that constricted his heart. He was too old for this. Too tired and sore with his blackened heart dwindling like a deflated balloon and his liver swollen and scarred from years of self-medicating with whiskey. He remembered the warnings from his doctor and her concerned face across the desk as she admonished him about his drinking. She had handed him leaflets filled with frightening words and medical jargon, but once he got home he had dropped them on the table and promised to read them later, but he never did and they went out with the recycling at the end of the week.
If he lived to see Sam into early adulthood, that would be enough, and his job would be done.
He walked on, struggling over slopes and rises, wiping specks of rain from his eyes. One step then the next as he navigated wet ground and overgrown pastures. Black streams trickling into frothing ditches. He could feel the rust inside him and the microbes and germs on his skin. The bacteria toiling in his gut.
Distant towns and villages like apparitions in the downpour. Thunder crackled in a sky
the colour of base metals. Slouched like a sickly wanderer, Eddie watched the fields and the trees. The rain tasted of ash. The roads were flooded, so he kept to the fields and was careful not to get stuck in the boggy ground, where the mud pulled at his boots. The land was carnivorous; it would drag him down and devour him, then spit his bones out for the crows.
His thighs burned. The pain in his knees caused him to wince with each step. He muttered a prayer for the rain to stop, to give him some respite, but if anyone had ever been listening they had stopped a long time ago.
***
In a field blasted to bare ground by the winter, he crouched by a child’s skull and broken vertebrae scattered in the mud and thought that none of it was real until his fingers found the dulled bones and caressed them. Then he snatched his hand away and wiped it on his trousers. Those bones were someone’s son or daughter, dismantled and obliterated. How was that an end to a life? It was cruel and hopeless, and he looked at the sky to ask questions, but his voice was lost in a sudden burst of icy breeze whipping across the fields.
He pulled the metal hip flask from his pocket and drank deep from the whiskey inside and savoured the aching burn in his chest. Then he drank again and the world went away for a while and it was a small comfort.
***
The house appeared out of the rain, darker than the shape of the woods behind it. Eddie sighed, relieved to be almost home. His boots and trousers were filthy with mud and weighed him down. He was exhausted down to his bones.
He walked along the river and looked for fish in the dark water, but they were either too deep to be seen or they were gone. He climbed over a wooden stile and stepped onto a dirt track flanked by bare hedgerows. Small depressions in the ground. Loose stones and wet grit. Ditches flooded with rainwater that spilled onto the track.
Eddie looked at the house. One of the downstairs windows held a faint light; he would talk to Sam about that.
A small face appeared in the window then dipped out of sight again, and when Eddie reached the house there was the sound of bolts being pulled back. The scraping turn of an old key in the lock. Then the door opened and Sam stood in the doorway, hopeful and pale in the fading daylight. The smallest curve of a smile. He shied away from the rain and wiped his nose with the back of his wrist.
‘You were gone a long time.’
Eddie lowered his cloth mask and put away the pistol. ‘I know. Weather held me up.’
‘It’s raining bad.’
‘Yes, I’m standing in it. I saw the light in the window from over in the field. I told you to make sure the curtains are drawn.’
‘Sorry, Grandad, I forgot.’
‘It’s okay. Just try to remember.’
‘Did you find any chocolate?’
‘Let me in the house first, lad.’
‘Sorry, Grandad.’
***
The door closed behind Eddie, shutting out the wind and rain. Sam threw the bolts across the door. Eddie struggled to take off his boots, and nearly fell over when he lost his balance and had to lean against the banister at the foot of the stairs. Sam watched him. Eddie put his boots next to the door and stood dripping in the hallway like a half-drowned man pulled from the sea. He took off his coat and waterproof trousers, and slumped, glad to be out of the rain.
Sam handed him a towel. Eddie dabbed at his face and the back of his neck. The towel smelled of mildew but he didn’t care because he just wanted to be dry and warm. He walked into the kitchen, where an LED lantern gave definition to the room and its angles. Sam watched him unpack the bag on the dining table.
Eddie handed him the Mars bar. ‘Here you go. Can’t be many of those left.’
‘Thanks, Grandad.’
‘Don’t eat it until after dinner, okay?’
‘Yes, Grandad.’
‘Good lad.’
‘Did you see any other people out there?’
‘Like who?’
‘People like us.’
‘People like us?’
‘Survivors, Grandad…’
‘Survivors.’ Eddie said the word as though it were the punchline to a bad joke. He sorted through the food he’d scavenged. Looked at the stash and frowned. ‘I didn’t see anyone.’
‘Oh.’ The boy stared at the chocolate bar as he turned it over between his fingers.
Eddie put one hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘That doesn’t mean there are no survivors out there.’
Sam glanced at him and sniffed. Scratched the side of his mouth as he looked at the floor. ‘I suppose so.’
‘We’re not the last ones left, Sam.’
The boy raised his face and the sad shine of his eyes broke Eddie’s heart. ‘Would we help other people, if they were starving or in danger?’
‘Depends.’
‘Depends on what?’
‘It’s not as simple as you think it is, Sam. There’s only so much food and water left.’
‘So we shouldn’t help other people?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Then what are you saying? If there was a little boy or a little girl out there, you wouldn’t help them?’
‘Of course I would.’
‘Doesn’t sound like it, Grandad. If we needed help, I hope someone would help us.’
‘We don’t need help,’ Eddie said.
‘What about when the food runs out?’
‘It won’t run out.’
‘But you said there is only so much food left…’
‘I didn’t mean it like that. I mean… It’s hard to explain, Sam.’
‘Okay.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t understand old people.’
***
Darkness fell to dismantle the fields and trees. Rain upon the roof. The windows rattled in their frames and the thin glass seemed barely capable of resistance. Howl and scream of the wind across the winter-barren countryside.
They went through the same routine each night. The curtains were drawn, doors locked, bolted and checked, then checked again just to make sure. The fireplace was blocked with bricks and stones.
‘What do you want for dinner?’ Eddie asked.
Not missing a beat, Sam said, ‘Spaghetti hoops and sliced up hot dogs.’
Eddie patted the boy’s head. ‘Good answer.’
***
Eddie cooked the meal on the camping stove and Sam sat with him and they enjoyed the warmth of the steaming food from the pot. They ate from the old plates they’d found in the cupboards when they first arrived here after fleeing the city. Sam speared the spaghetti on his plastic fork and watched the tomato sauce drip back onto the plate before he put it in his mouth. But he still managed to get the sauce on his chin. He ate the slices of hot dog without chewing. Eddie watched and couldn’t help but smile as he picked at his own food.
‘When can we go for a walk outside, Grandad?’
Eddie swallowed a mouthful of food and looked at the boy. ‘A walk?’
‘You promised me we could go for a walk one day. So we could go bird-watching.’
‘I can’t remember saying that,’ Eddie said.
‘You promised, Grandad.’
‘We’ll see. It’s not safe outside.’
‘Not a long walk; just around the garden and maybe the nearest field. I could take my birdwatching book with me, so I could tell what birds are what.’
‘We’ll see,’ Eddie said. ‘Maybe when the weather clears up, okay?’
Sam nodded and looked at his plate.
‘I know it’s difficult to stay inside all the time,’ said Eddie. ‘But it’s for our safety.’
‘But you go outside…’
‘Only because I have to find food for us.’
‘And your drink.’
Eddie sighed. ‘We’ll go for a walk soon. I promise.’
‘You always promise.’
‘I know.’
After Sam finished the spaghetti and hot dogs, he very carefully opened the Mars bar, and when he finished eating he looked at the empty wrapper
in his hands. His eyes were damp and solemn. Then he folded the wrapper neatly and placed it in his pocket and went into the living room.
***
Eddie sipped whiskey and watched Sam play on the floor with his Transformers action figures. He made laser noises; mimicked explosions and robotic voices. He didn’t cheer when the bad guys were killed. The boy played out battles and daring missions, and in the end the heroes won the fight. But he didn’t smile and in silence he packed the toys away.
Eddie’s eyes lingered upon the dead television. He missed watching the football. He missed a lot of things.
The evening passed and the rain didn’t stop. When it was getting late and Sam was nodding into one of his adventure books, Eddie put him to bed and read Where the Wild Things Are until Sam’s eyes closed and he turned away towards the window and fell asleep.
Eddie returned to the living room. The metal springs creaked as he lowered himself into the armchair. He drank from his flask and listened to the house in the night. The whiskey numbed his mind and soothed the black tumours of anxiety and fear in his heart.
As the night went on, all the people he’d known and who’d died came to visit him and he spoke with them all and they shared good memories.
***
In his sleep he returned to when he first met Ruth. It was 1968 and he had gone to the shoe shop on Mandalay Road to buy a pair of oxfords for a job interview at a local bank.
As he stood staring at the shelves, his forehead shining with sweat from the summer heat, a small voice asked if he needed any help. And when he turned with his hands worrying at each other he couldn’t help gawping at the young woman smiling at him. His mouth dried up; his tongue became stuck behind his teeth, and he glanced everywhere except for her eyes, which were like wonderful colours from otherworldly pools.
Year of the Zombie (Book 2): The Plague Winter Page 1