The place stank of cigarette smoke, shitty diapers, rank body odor, and burned food. The conversations were muted and tentative, and someone’s hushed weeping reminded Tomas of sounds that might echo through the dark corridors of an asylum. The only laughter came in small bursts from the children.
When he moved around the tavern to be closer to Christopher and Melanie—for access to that gun—he noticed several of the other men gravitating along with him, including the disheveled welcoming committee of Henriksen, Lunde, and Morgan. Tomas lingered along the edges of the crowd, uncomfortable, leery, and ready to move if he needed to, his listening keen on what the other kids were saying to Christopher. He didn’t need anyone telling the boy something that would upset him even further.
He scanned the room repeatedly. Something weird was going to go down, sooner rather than later. Father Vernon sat alone at a table, hunched over a glass of vodka filled to the brim, his face drawn with not only worry, but perhaps guilt, as well. He carried the guilt in the slump of his shoulders and the way he refused to meet Tomas’s gaze.
Tomas wove his way through the smoky crowd and slid into the empty seat opposite the craggy priest. “What the hell’s going on here?” he whispered, aware of the eyes still on him.
Father Vernon lifted his glass. “Drink?”
“No. Now tell me.”
The priest took a drink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tom.”
“You won’t even look me in the eye. Morgan and his girlfriends haven’t taken their eyes off me since we got here. What’s going on?”
Father Vernon laughed bitterly. “Where’ve you been for the past week? The end of the world. That’s what’s going on.” He glanced around, then leaned closer to Tomas. “Sacrifice, Tom.”
“What are you talking about? Sacrifice?”
“They’re choosing bodies to go out as offerings to keep those things out of here.” He finished his drink and tipped the bottle to refresh it.
“Are we in danger here, Father? Is my child in danger?”
“We all are, aren’t we? They’re using warm bodies to distract the crazies when they need to go get supplies.” Father Vernon grimaced, the low flame of the candle creating monstrous shadows beneath his eyes. “They send someone out front, tied like a bit of bait, while Morgan, Lunde, and some others go out the back and raid the shops and homes for food, drink, and whatever else they can loot. We started running low on food a few days ago.”
“Why don’t you just move on, go somewhere else?”
“We considered it. But with a group this size, it would be a bloody massacre.”
Tomas nodded. “You’re right. I suppose it might. But what’s the difference? The weak are sacrificed, anyway.”
“Exactly. The weakest. They send out the ones they know aren’t in this for the long haul. The first to go was Eric Wikman’s son.”
Tomas took a moment to get a clear picture of Charlie Wikman in his mind—thirteen years old, his small limbs crooked with cerebral palsy. His stomach flip-flopped. That explained the abandoned wheelchair out on the street. “Are you serious? What happened to Eric?”
Father Vernon shrugged. “Don’t know. Gone, I suppose. Eric burst out there, snatched the boy from his wheelchair, and took off into the darkness. Those… things followed like a pack of mad dogs.” The old man wet his lips and reached across the table to grip Tomas’s arm. “They’ll send you out next. You’re a threat. They don’t want a voice of reason in here. Or a conscience. Survival is all that matters to them.”
“I thought reminding these people of their morals was your job.”
“I quit that job long before the Solstice came.” Father Vernon hung his head.
Tomas had had enough of the old man. “Looks like decency is more of a luxury than I realized.” He stood to leave.
“You have no idea, Tom,” Father Vernon said, and then his eyes widened. “Tom! Look out!”
The blow came from nowhere. Pain exploded in the side of Tomas’s head.
Chapter 15
London, England
The rest of the trek to Tana’s building was uneventful. The four of them hung in the shadows like the rats that had taken over the streets. Snow blustered, the flakes as light as feathers from a down pillow. Josh and Brett wanted to get too far ahead, and Stu couldn’t decide if they were careless or crazy. He tried to remember if he’d ever carried that mad sense of invincibility. He doubted it. At their age, he had been a bespectacled, undersized boy who hid behind a book and slinked in the shadows. Football players hit hard—he learned that in ninth grade. He was quickly learning that zombies, or whatever the hell they were, hit even harder.
Tana shuffled past Stu and onto the sidewalk. She headed to the front door of a six-story red brick building Stu assumed was hers. London in normal times was unfamiliar to him, but the streets, dark, deserted, and lifeless, formed a scene from a dystopian science fiction novel. As Tana fumbled with her key, Stu looked up at the sky, which seemed to have a million stars, but a conspicuously absent moon, then around at the eerie streets. Paper and trash gusted in the wind like deformed birds. A double-decker bus lay on its side atop what appeared to be a relatively new Fiat. The stink of gasoline filled the otherwise crisp air.
Tana finally managed to open the door. “Be careful. The stairs are narrow.”
Stu followed her inside, with Brett and Josh bringing up the rear, their flashlight beam, shorting out one moment and bright the next, bobbing like a tiny flare in the bleak lobby.
They started up the narrow stairway, their footsteps echoing too loudly in the gloomy silence, breaths amplified to sharp hisses. Then, another sound came—the slamming of a door. Stu stopped in his tracks, heart in his throat.
Tana squeezed Stu’s hand. “What the hell was that?”
Stu then heard the shrill laughter of a child, as thin as crystal, followed by the rapid footfalls of someone very small running along the hallway just one level above. The light thumps trailed away, ascending, along with the happy, manic giggling.
Tana and Brett trained their lights upward, searching the thick darkness for movement. There was nothing, and quickly the sounds had disappeared as well.
“Let’s keep moving, guys,” Tana said. “I’m on the fifth floor.”
“Boy, that’s a long way in this darkness,” Brett said. “Of course, I didn’t have any other plans.”
“Never did.” Josh laughed softly.
“Smart ass,” Brett answered.
“Shut up, the both of you.” Stu couldn’t see how they could think of goofing off when he was nearly too afraid to move and probably wouldn’t be moving at all if Tana wasn’t leading him by the hand. His forehead was perspiring, and he wondered if Tana felt his hand trembling in hers.
The stairwell smelled foul, like spoiled food or garbage that had been sitting too long. The thought of garbage led to visions of rats peering out of the shadows—big mutant rats with huge teeth and blood dripping from their wiry whiskers, like the ones in that Stephen King story. Stu shivered and listened for the sounds of their needle-sharp claws skittering across the floor.
He wondered if it was possible to die of fright because he was positive he would if a cold hand caressed the back of his neck. In the cloying darkness of the stairs, he felt exposed without a light or a weapon.
Tara squeezed his hand again. “We’re almost there. Two more flights.” Her breath touched his face like a kiss, and he was comforted yet again by her unyielding presence, as he’d been so often since the sun had set for the final time.
When Tana shined her light on the fifth-floor landing and then down the bleak hallway, Stu indeed saw rats, hordes of them racing away from the invading light and into ajar apartment doors. Had those homes been looted or had the inhabitants simply left, as Tana had, in a panic? Perhaps they were still in there, waiting, afraid. Or changed, gone as mad as the ones back in the car park.
“Which one?” Josh asked.
“Five-G,�
� Tana said. “Three doors down and on the left.”
They found her front door still locked and uncompromised. She fished her keys from her jeans pocket and gave Stu her flashlight. Once inside, Stu locked the door and then slid the chain into place, but he felt no safer. He wondered if Tana had any alcohol in her apartment. Maybe a drink would calm his anxiety.
Tana briefly vanished down a narrow corridor and then reappeared with another flashlight and a duffel bag. She passed the light to Stu. “Can you believe it? The batteries still work,” she said, flicking the switch on and off a couple of times. She passed the duffel bag to the two teenagers. “Pack some of Davis’s clothes and toys. His things are on the left side of that second bedroom down the hall.” Tana then touched Stu’s arm. “Come with me.”
Stu was thankful to have a light of his own again and pointed it toward the floor ahead of him, and then in the corners, looking for any wicked, silvery eyes reflecting the light back to him. More than anything else, rats were the things that really made his flesh crawl.
Tana’s bedroom was the larger of the two. In the adjacent bedroom, Brett and Josh babbled, then laughed heartily, and again he wondered how kids could so easily adjust to incredible situations. Were they just not worried? Or did they consider it just another fantastic adventure on the road to adulthood?
An adulthood that would likely never come…
Stu had talked to his students about the situation a couple of times, but how could he truly address something he didn’t understand? In the end, he had reasoned that allowing a crying shoulder, a place where they could pour their concerns and fears might help them cope. Stu coped with the aid of a bottle more often than not, but the kids didn’t have that crutch. They worried over their families, as he did, but unlike him, they also carried an overwhelming sense of faith.
He pretended his faith in front of Tana and the kids. What else could he do? They looked up to him for some reason. Support? Good news? Courage? If they could look inside him, they would find none of those things. They’d find fear and little else. Of course, being scared didn’t relieve him of his responsibilities to his students. And to Tana.
Tana opened her closet and vanished inside among the rows of hanging shirts, trousers, and dresses, all of which looked too much like figures waiting in the dark.
When she reappeared, she held a large suitcase. “This is it.” She placed the case on the bed, thumbed the latch, and flipped back the wide lid. “Not a whole lot, but better than a bloody cricket bat, right?”
She reached in with her free hand and fetched a cloth-covered shape. “This is a .40 caliber gold-plated handgun,” she said as she removed the cloth cover. “And check this out.” A red pinpoint of light appeared, cutting the darkness like a blade. “A laser sight.” She passed it to Stu. “Larry brought home three of these.”
Stu took the gun and pointed it toward a framed print of Pink Floyd’s The Wall movie poster. “Is there ammo?”
“Are you kidding?” She disappeared back into the closet and returned with a smaller case. She opened the top and dumped out around twenty boxes of ammo.
Stu grabbed a box and examined it with his flashlight. He picked up a second box and found that it contained rifle rounds. “What are these for?”
Tana reached into the case and removed a larger shape concealed by a thick cloth. “This.” She unwrapped a rifle as carefully as she might a coveted Christmas gift. “This is a Browning semi-automatic. I don’t know much about guns and have only shot a couple of times with Larry at a range. But I’m willing to guess this might kick a little ass.”
Stu laid the handgun aside and took the rifle. “I’m willing to guess you’re right.” He glanced at her. “How many of these do you have?”
“Two. I’m thinking this might get us back to the store without getting killed. We need to make sure George gets one. I’ve no question he knows how to use it. If we can defend ourselves, our options are wide open.”
Tana went over to her boys’ room. Stu heard her say something about Stormtrooper Underoos, and the teenagers laughed. When she returned, she had a Hogwarts messenger bag in her hand. She dumped the contents—textbooks, pencils, a comic book, a spiral notebook onto the floor and began shoving boxes of ammo.
“Which gun do you want?” she asked.
“None, actually, but since I don’t wanna die today, I’ll take a handgun. I’ll need to sight it if I plan on hitting anything.” Stu checked the magazine, then slid the gun into the waistband of his jeans, not liking the weight or the cool touch of the steel against his skin.
“You aren’t keen on guns, I take it?” Tana loaded the .40 caliber and slid it into her jacket pocket.
Stu shook his head. “Hate them, but these are different times. I used to shoot a little. My father made me hunt with him when I was a boy. He thought it might keep me from becoming soft.” He laughed with more bitterness than he intended.
Tana touched his shoulder. “Guns don’t make a man a man.”
“They don’t hurt, I suppose,” Stu said.
“What about Brett and Josh?”
“Give them the rifles. Both of them like to hunt. We’re from the South. Bubba-blood runs deep.” Stu chuckled, but Tana didn’t seem to get the joke. “They know more about handling guns than I do. They’ll be fine.”
Tana began rummaging through her dresser drawers. “Listen, Stu. Why don’t you take a look around the apartment and see if there is anything else we could use? I just want to grab a few more things. It could be a while before I get back here.”
Stu nodded. “Maybe not too long,” he said, though he didn’t believe it. He took the rifles to Brett and Josh, who were overjoyed with their new toys, and went back into the living room.
There wasn’t anything in the apartment they couldn’t find back in the Tesco market, but he understood Tana needed a few moments alone. Their lives had all been turned upside down, and she was coping as best she could. He flopped down on the sofa, let his head drop back, and closed his eyes. Despite the cold, he began to drift off to sleep.
The wondrous images that accompanied falling slumber began to swirl behind his eyelids. For a moment, he was in his kitchen back in Wilmington, the sun pouring through the big window over the sink, those little specks of dust floating in the rays. At the table, Maddy dumped Froot Loops into a bowl, and he was about to tell her, “Not too much,” when Tana called, startling him awake.
“Stu! Come in here! Quick!”
He stood up, blinking in the darkness. No sunshine. No warmth. No Maddy. He’d dropped his flashlight and accidentally kicked it, so he stumbled after it. “Are you all right?” he asked, hurrying back to her bedroom.
Her cheeks were wet with tears, but she beamed, as did his two young students.
“You’re not gonna believe this, Mr. McCarthy,” Brett said.
Tana held up a small transistor radio. “Listen.”
Most of what he heard was static, but soon he was able to make out voices. Stu took a long, shaky breath and hoped his galloping heart would calm before he had a coronary.
Tana adjusted the dial, and the voices dissolved into static, followed by dead air. “Shit!”
“Let me.” Stu took the radio and moved the dial up slowly, straining to hear any hint of a signal.
Suddenly, a male voice came in loud and clear. “This is Zombie Radio X, if anyone’s left out there. Looking for sanctuary? Survivors’ Sanctuary sets sail on February fourteenth. February fourteenth, Saint Valentine’s Day. How’s that for easy to remember?”
A woman’s voice chimed in. “Just like one of those stupid horror flicks? Ragers everywhere. Never imagined we’d be living it for real. But in the bleedin’ dark? Southampton Cruise Terminal. Be there or be dead. We’re setting sail for the U.S. of A. to see how our Yankee friends are faring.”
The male voice broke in, “If there’s anyone listening, hang in there. It’s only a few more weeks. We cannot tell you our current location. The marauders are alwa
ys listening. But you’ll know us when you see us at Sanctuary. We’ll be the ones with a bloody pulse. Stay tuned and stay alive. We’ll be on again in a few hours. In the meantime, this one goes out to our not-quite-alive friends.”
The station faded into the thumping opening of Joy Division’s Dead Souls.
“Great sense of humor,” Tana said caustically.
“Ragers. That sounds cool,” Brett said.
“You would say that, you knob,” Josh said, shoving his friend.
“Dork,” Brett answered, to which Josh replied, “Pussy.”
“Fag.” Both boys burst in to laughter.
“Shut the hell up. Please.” Stu tried unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. He could barely contain his excitement. He turned to Tana. “Does this mean we have a way home?”
“That’s exactly what it means,” Josh interrupted.
Tana shook her head. “Wait. It sounds a bit far-fetched.”
“It does,” Stu agreed. “But this may be my only chance to get back to my daughter.”
“Stu, the Southhampton Terminal is over one hundred kilometers from here, at least. What about the crazies? And the stalled cars on the roads? What makes you think you can make it there in one piece?”
“I have to try.”
Tana frowned. “But what happens if you do make it back to the States, and things there are worse there?”
Stu shook his head. “Worse? Worse than what, Tana? I’m willing to take my chances.”
Tana pushed past him and stormed down the hallway.
Stu snatched up the messenger bag full of ammo, threw it over his shoulder, and rushed after her. “She’s my little girl. I need to know.”
Tana spun on him. “You need to know? What the hell happens when you finally know and wish you didn’t? What do you do then, Stu?” She waved the light in her fist, creating a crazy mask of shadows on her face. “What will keep you going when there’s nothing left to fight for?”
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