When the sound of two huge steel bolts snapped through the relative silence, Vicky raised both hands in the air and waited. Whatever this place was, she’d arrived, so she needed to see it through.
Two men stepped out through the door. Dressed from head to toe in army gear, they both wore masks, and they each carried a shotgun. With their weapons raised, they stepped toward Vicky.
Vicky’s pulse raced as she stared at the men. Although imposing, she turned away from them to watch her surroundings in case of diseased.
As the men drew closer, Vicky saw that they too had their attention on their surroundings rather than her. The pair walked past her and continued to look around. One of the men, his voice muffled by his mask, said to Vicky, “Follow us back in. We’ve got your back.”
The two men walked backwards toward Home, their guns raised the entire time. When they drew closer to the door, Vicky saw it had been locked again. The same two snaps cut through the relative silence and the hinges on the door creaked as someone pulled it open.
“You go first, love,” one of the men said to Vicky.
Once inside, a third man slammed the large steel door with a crash that damn near lifted Vicky’s feet from the ground as it startled her. Vicky looked around. A foyer, it had a flight of stairs at each end that led down into what seemed to be a complex far grander than its external appearance suggested.
With everyone inside, the third man dragged the large bolts back across to secure the door.
The two armed men both put their guns down and pulled off their masks. One of the men, a dark-haired fellow in what seemed to be his early forties, held his hand out to Vicky. With a bright smile and a glint in his eyes, he said, “Hi, I’m Hugh. Welcome to Home.”
The ball of grief inside of Vicky popped, and her sadness rushed out of her in a hot mess of tears, sobs, and wails. A second later, her legs gave way beneath her, and she hit the ground hard.
Chapter Forty-Four
A headache sat as a sharp pain behind Vicky’s eyeballs, and her temples throbbed. The bed may have been soft beneath her, but her body ached like she had blood poisoning.
It took several groans before Vicky could even think about moving. She finally sat upright in bed. The mattress may have been cleaner and softer than anything she’d slept on in a long time, but as Vicky looked around the room, she couldn’t ignore the fact that she currently sat in what appeared to be a locked cell. “What the fuck,” she muttered as she scratched her head.
The small space—a windowless box a couple of metres square—had a strip light that ran across the ceiling. A bed and nothing else in the room, it had stark white walls. Aesthetically cold if nothing else, a chill snapped through Vicky as she took the place in.
The door to the cell looked like something from medieval times. Made from thick wood, it had a small hole as a window no more than the size of a shoebox. Black bars ran vertically across it. Before she could get to her feet, Vicky saw the plate on the floor. It had a sandwich on it. Vicky picked it up and inhaled the smell of fresh bread and cheese. Her hunger damn near beat its way from her body to get to the snack. First, Vicky picked the bottle of water up and took a sip. Cool and refreshing, she let the liquid rehydrate her parched throat.
Vicky salivated as she bit into the sandwich and smelled the mix of bread, butter, and cheese. The salty taste of the cheese stretched through her mouth and she groaned. Fuck knows why she found herself in a cell at that moment, but if they gave her food like this, they could keep her in here forever.
After she’d washed down her first mouthful with a gulp of water, a lock snapped free on the other side of her cell door and Vicky looked up to watch it open.
Despite the uncertainty of what could come through, Vicky took another bite of the sandwich. Whatever happened to her, it would happen with food in her stomach.
Hugh, the man who’d let her into Home, walked in with a woman. The guy seemed friendly, but Vicky said nothing to him. Dressed in grey tracksuit bottoms and a loose t-shirt, Hugh smiled at her. Thick biceps poked out of the bottom of his sleeves, and his pecs lifted the rest of the t-shirt away from his stomach.
“How are you doing?” Hugh asked. “I’m—”
“Hugh, I know. You said that the first time we met.”
“I didn’t know if you’d have remembered.”
Vicky stared at him.
“You’re probably wondering why we have you locked up?”
Vicky continued to stare.
“Wow, tough crowd.”
“Your prisoners are normally a laugh a minute then?”
After a slight pause, Hugh laughed. “Fair point. Look …”
“Vicky.”
“Vicky. Look, Vicky, let me cut to the chase. Home is a friendly place and we welcome anyone who shares our vision. We’re surviving, and we’re doing it well, but we want to take this world back. We don’t have enough people yet, but more are coming all the time. We hope to form an army formidable enough to go to war against the diseased.”
Vicky scoffed. “You realise that most of the country have turned into those things, right?”
“You’ve been around the entire country?”
With her jaw clenched, Vicky watched the man in front of her. “All right, smart arse, but you shouldn’t underestimate the task you have ahead of you.”
“I don’t. But every diseased we kill is one less in the country, right?”
The woman who’d entered with Hugh hadn’t spoken. Vicky looked at her, and the woman looked back. Arched eyebrows and a severe ponytail, the woman had a face that pulled back with her tight hair. She shrugged and looked back at Hugh.
When Hugh sat down next to Vicky on the bed, she caught a whiff of the guy for the first time. A clean mix of soap and flowers, Vicky shifted away from him. She probably stank in comparison. “We quarantine everyone that comes into Home for the first two days. If you haven’t turned by then, you’re given a bed to stay in and welcomed into the community with open arms. We normally explain that to someone when they arrive, but with you collapsing, we had to assume your consent.”
“And if I reject your terms now?”
“Then you can leave. No harm, no foul.”
Vicky didn’t respond.
“We have about one hundred people here already, Vicky. We’d love for you to join our ever-expanding community.”
The way Hugh looked at Vicky—his dark eyes staring directly into hers—spread heat through her cheeks, and although she wanted to reply this time, she couldn’t find the words. Instead, she simply stared back and her throat dried. She hadn’t been looked at in that way for a long time.
Although she gulped, it had little effect, and before she could say anything, Hugh picked up the water bottle from the floor and handed it to her. “Here.” He smiled again.
A shake ran through Vicky’s hands as she fumbled with the bottle cap. After she’d finally managed to remove it, she took a sip and drew several deep breaths.
Before she could speak, Hugh got to his feet. “We’ll bring you regular food and water, but please shout if you need anything. Someone will hear you and bring you what you need; if we can provide it, that is. Now, I hope you don’t mind, but Jessica here will need to inspect you for bites and cuts. I’m sure you’re fine; it’s just a formality, you know?”
Because he hadn’t asked for her permission, Vicky didn’t give it. They would do what they wanted to, and what Hugh said made sense. They’d survived this long for a reason.
For the first time since she’d entered the room, Jessica smiled at Vicky. As Hugh walked out, she said, “Now, if you’d please stand up and remove your clothes.”
Vicky did as the woman asked her. As she unzipped her coat, she watched Hugh leave the cell. The guy didn’t look back once. The perfect gentleman. Were the roles reversed, Vicky would have found it damn hard not to get an eyeful of his naked form.
Chapter Forty-Five
Although Hugh opened the door and walked into he
r cell with a broad smile on his face, Vicky remained on the mattress and stared at the man. Neither hungry nor thirsty anymore, she had little motivation to move and her body had turned to lead.
“Come on then,” Hugh said, “you’ve done your time. Let’s get you out of here.”
“Do I have to?”
“Huh?”
Vicky sighed and dropped her head back against the pillow. “I’ve had a decade of looking after people; of sleeping on a cold and hard floor; of existing day to day. I could get used to sleeping all day and having someone wait on me hand and foot.”
Hugh laughed. “You and I both know you’d get bored.”
After she’d shrugged, Vicky sat up. “Yeah, you’re right.” When she dropped her feet down onto the hard floor, the coldness of it stretched up through her exposed soles and banished her lethargy. During her stay, she’d been given fresh clothes and clean water to bathe in. Other than a dip in the river near to the airport, or a rainwater shower in the bathroom container, she’d not had a decent wash for the longest time. Despite the bitterness attached to her memories of her journey, coming to Home looked like it had been one of her better decisions in the past decade.
***
Because she’d been unconscious when they took her to her cell, Vicky hadn’t seen much of Home. The holding cell existed on a long corridor full of identically sized rooms. Some had doors like the room she’d stayed in, while others had none at all and looked like they were used for storage. Strip lighting ran along the ceiling in the hallway, providing the same unnatural glare that she’d experienced in her cell. They’d asked her if she wanted the light on at night. No thank you! She may have had nightmares in the darkness, but at least she slept.
At the end of the corridor, they came to a huge open space. Easily big enough for three football fields, maybe four, a large part of it had been sectioned off and contained an industrial kitchen. In another corner stood a medical bay, not that it looked terribly well equipped. No doubt countless people had died in those beds as the community tried to save them. She didn’t need to ask for Hugh’s confirmation on that.
The crash of pots and crockery filled the air, and Vicky flinched several times as the bangs rang hard enough to drive needles into her eardrums.
After two days of solitary incarceration, the activity in the place sent Vicky’s head into a spin. She shut down to her environment as much as she could and focused on Hugh’s broad back as he led them from the huge area.
As if stuck on a loop, the next corridor they entered looked exactly the same as the one with the holding cells, except every room had a door on it. Each room looked the same—or at least the ones Vicky could see into did.
Small like the holding cell, each room had a bed in the middle. Instead of the hard industrial floor, these rooms had rugs and carpets. “This is where you’ll sleep,” Hugh said when he stopped outside one of the rooms.
After she’d dropped a sharp nod to the man, Vicky walked past him and entered the room.
Before she could sit on the bed, Hugh said, “It’s morning. Will you come to the canteen with me for breakfast?”
The sound of the kitchen had been bad enough. The chaos of a canteen could drive her over the edge. But Vicky didn’t voice her feelings. Instead, she nodded at Hugh and followed him along the corridor.
The room at the end bore a striking resemblance to the kitchen and medical area. Similar in dimensions, this space had rows and rows of tables. People sat at the tables. More people than Vicky had seen in the past ten years.
They had kids there too. The little scamps tore around, food in their mouths and their parents’ voices chasing behind them. How lovely to see such abandon in the children. Flynn lost that years ago. To even think about the boy ran a shredding pain through Vicky’s throat.
When Vicky sat down, Hugh plonked himself on the bench opposite her. “So,” he said, “breakfast?”
Vicky nodded.
Hugh smiled at her. “I’ll go and get you some.”
***
It may have been powdered milk, but Vicky hadn’t tasted cereal in a long time. Fuck knows what they called the small wheat-based biscuits, but they had clearly been grown and processed by the community. Not that delicious needed a name. Vicky lifted another spoon to her mouth and crunched down on the sweet cereal.
With Hugh opposite her, Vicky did her best to ignore him. So when he spoke to her, her heart sank. She needed time to acclimatise to the place. Didn’t he get that?
“So how did you end up at Home?”
The roof caved in again in Vicky’s mind and she watched the boy she loved like a son die all over again. A thick frown darkened her view of the world in front of her, and Vicky directed it at Hugh.
“Whoa,” Hugh said, “I’m only asking the single most popular question you’ll get while you’re here.
Well, maybe she didn’t want to answer it, and maybe Hugh should respect that.
Each wall in the canteen had a huge monitor on it. Each screen showed the same footage. It cycled through what must have been external cameras, one after the other. When she looked back at Hugh, she found him staring at her.
“We have those monitors up,” Hugh said, “to remind us what’s outside of our safe walls.”
At that moment, a group of four diseased people appeared on one of the cameras. Everyone stopped to watch them. The children booed and hissed.
“Yet, you’ve probably desensitised the people to the horrors by turning it into a movie,” Vicky said. “Show them a shocking image enough times, especially when it’s diluted by being on a screen, and it won’t be shocking anymore. You’re not toughening these kids up; you’re turning them into weaklings that won’t fear what is the most credible threat to their existence.”
Although Hugh opened his mouth to reply, Vicky turned away from him and focused on her breakfast. The burn of his attention itched into the side of her face until, eventually, he focused on his breakfast too.
Chapter Forty-Six
The dark meat had a rich taste that seeped into the gravy and through the veg. Vicky didn’t want to seem ungrateful, and she wouldn’t have called the flavour unpleasant, but had they given her a menu, she certainly wouldn’t have ordered it.
As she chewed on the meat, Vicky looked up at Hugh again. “What is this?”
“Stew.”
After Vicky had looked down at it for a second, she looked back at him. “I can see that, but what kind of stew?”
“Oh, I’d say probably squirrel. I’m not sure. I’m not a member of the hunting party, so half the time I don’t know.” He smiled. “As long as it ain’t human, eh?”
The smell of the burned man returned to Vicky’s nostrils and she looked away from Hugh. He had no way of knowing what she’d been through. How could he?
Another mouthful of squirrel and Vicky looked around the canteen again. Flynn would have loved the stew. The boy ate anything, and to be fair to him, he probably could have made it taste better than those in Home’s kitchen had. They’d gotten so close to freedom to fuck it up at the last minute. Poor kid. Vicky drew a heavy sigh. It did nothing to relieve the weight on her sore heart.
As she chewed on her food, Vicky watched the monitors in the canteen. The grass swayed as if of its own accord, the huge blades dancing as one. Like the children who had turned the diseased into pantomime villains, Vicky watched the outside world as if it didn’t exist as a reality beyond their walls.
When the grass on one of the cameras moved slightly differently to all of the others, Vicky got to her feet.
With her eyes fixed on the monitor, she felt Hugh look up at her. “Are you okay?”
Vicky squinted as she watched the screen and said nothing to the man next to her. Then she caught a glimpse of it and her heart lifted. A dirty form, covered in mud, it walked like a human, not a diseased.
Vicky kicked her seat back and it crashed to the floor. A busy canteen, Vicky could feel all the sets of eyes on her as she rushe
d over to the screen and stared up at it. Maybe they thought the new girl had gone feral. They were bound to have seen the newest arrivals pop when the pressure of the outside world had been taken off them.
Just a metre from one of the monitors, Vicky stared at it. A sharp sting itched her eyes as she watched on without blinking. From years of existing out in the open, she knew how to spot signs of movement in the grass. Hell, she even knew how it looked when the movement had been caused by a diseased.
Another glance at the form in the grass and her heart jumped. As Hugh joined her by her side, she spoke frantic words, her lungs tight from the excitement. “It’s him, Hugh.”
“Who?”
“Flynn.”
“Who the fuck’s Flynn?”
“My so—” But he wasn’t her son. “My … um, my travelling partner. I thought I’d lost him.”
Without another word, Vicky sprinted off through the canteen. She swerved through the tables and chairs and ignored the people that stared at her. Of course they would stare at her. But fuck them. Somehow, against all the odds, Flynn had survived.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Once Vicky had exited the canteen, she sprinted down a corridor that looked exactly like the others that had her holding cell and new room on.
She didn’t look back, but she heard Hugh’s footsteps as he chased after her. “Vicky,” he called. “Wait up, don’t do anything stupid.”
Stupid? She’d written Flynn off before he’d been killed. She’d already done something stupid; now she needed to make amends.
After a couple of days’ rest and some food, she moved more easily than she had in years. The aches and pains that characterised every movement had gone. She could run forever if she needed to. Strong again, she pushed on as she passed people’s private living quarters on either side of the long hall.
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