by Rick Wood
He sighed. Should he take a gun?
Screw it.
He opened the boot and sifted through the sports bag containing all the weapons. He found a small handgun. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt most right that he took this, instead of any of the bigger or more powerful-looking guns.
Maybe if it felt like less of a gun, he’d be better at shooting it.
He lifted the gun up and aimed at a distant road sign. It was heavy. Like, really heavy. How could something so small be so heavy?
Was it even loaded?
He rotated the gun, looking to see if it was loaded, until he realised he had no idea whatsoever what he was looking for. Was it a clip in the handle – a magazine, is that what they call it? Or was it a six shooter, like in a western.
No idea.
Just point, pull the trigger, and hope for the best.
Dropping the gun to his side, he scanned the area around him,and edged toward the opening to the woods.
Suddenly, he felt afraid.
He hadn’t felt it standing beside the car. If anything came at him, he’d see it, and he’d be able to get in the car and alert Sadie in time for her to stop it for him.
But now he was on his own.
He paused.
Should he turn back?
He looked over his shoulder at the car. Should he really leave Sadie alone? Would she be safe?
He scoffed.
Who was he kidding?
How would she be any safer with him there?
Donny checked his watch. Another ten minutes had passed, and Gus still hadn’t appeared.
Constantly scanning the surroundings, he approached the woods, staying low, like he’d hit the crouch button on the computer game and couldn’t figure out how to undo it.
But this was no computer game.
As he was about to find out.
33
“You tellin’ me, you lot are a bunch of cannibals?”
James scrunched his face up in disgust, turning away and mimicking a wretch.
“Oh, my,” he said, like someone had just been incredibly rude at a dinner party. “You wash your potty mouth out, mister!”
James kept the gun focussed on Gus’s head.
Gus looked over his shoulder at Stacey. As he was on his knees, she was about eye level with him, but her eyes gave no recognition of the abnormality of the situation. She smiled back at him and turned her eyes dotingly toward her parents. She was so prim, so proper, this whole thing just felt like a bizarre dream.
“So what, you gonna shoot me then chop me up?”
“I don’t know, being honest with you. Trisha, how should we do this one? I mean, that last fellow we shot in the head, and that ruined a whole load of the meat. Stacey always loves the brains.”
“I do.” Stacey nodded, a sweet, beaming smile delighting her face with virtuous joy. “I do, I do really love the brains.”
“Shit, the world ends and it brings out all the fuckin’ crazies.”
James lifted his hand back and smacked the end of his gun into the base of Gus’s skull. Gus fell onto his front, squinting in pain, the world spinning dizzily around him.
“Once again, I am going to remind you to mind your filthy tongue in front of my daughter!” James demanded, showing the first sign of genuine hostility he’d shown since he’d begun this incessantly sadistic tirade.
“Right then,” Gus coughed, pushing himself to his knees. “You gonna eat me, get on with it. I ain’t got all day.”
“I say the knife,” Trisha decided, withdrawing Gus’s large hunter’s knife with the curved blade. “The bottom of the spine. That way he’ll paralyse but stay alive. He won’t be able to move and wriggle away, which means we can keep him alive longer, and always have fresh meat.”
James’s jaw dropped open in astonishment. “What a gosh-darn wonderful idea! My wife,” he directed at Gus, “can you believe it? I mean, she spends so much time looking pretty I forget there’s one smart head on those shoulders too!”
I must be on acid.
Gus searched for something near him, something he could use as a weapon, a way to fight. A large rock, maybe, or a loose blade on one of them he could grab. Maybe he could take the daughter hostage. Threaten her until they submitted.
Then again, the daughter may be the most sadistic of the lot.
No. He was surrounded. There were three of them. The fight was falling out of him.
But what about his daughter?
No. That’s not right.
What about Eugene’s daughter?
Laney.
There I go again. It’s not my daughter. My daughter is…
A bush moved in the distance. Something was there.
Someone was there.
Gus kept his head lowered, not wanting to draw attention to it, but kept his eyes up.
The flicker of messy hair. A scruffy collar.
Donny.
It was Donny.
“Come on,” Gus whispered, urging Donny to make a move.
Donny, the man who hadn’t even been able to kill a zombie.
He was done for.
“Right,” James decided. “One does have places to be. Let’s get to it.”
James took the blade from his wife’s hands and gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek, whispering something undoubtedly romantic in her ear.
Gus’s hands scrunched up, digging into the earth, grasping tufts of grass.
James moved to the back of Gus, readying his knife hand.
“Don’t move!” came a weak cry, and Donny burst out from behind the bushes, pointing a trembling gun at James.
Fucking idiot.
Gus couldn’t have been more disappointed.
Donny was disguised. Under cover. Unnoticed.
He had a perfect vantage point to take the shot.
Now they were just going to get his gun off him and shoot Donny too. Maybe eat him for dessert, who knows.
“I mean, or I’ll shoot you,” Donny persisted with minimal conviction.
James paused, dropping the knife and lifting his hands up. The one advantage Donny did have was that they did not know how inept he was. For all they knew, he’d be able pinpoint all their heads in three quick successive shots. Until they realised how incapable he actually was, they would likely retain caution.
“Shoot them,” Gus grunted.
Donny edged forward, his gun buckling so hard between his two hands that Gus was amazed the kid didn’t drop it.
“Please, just shoot them,” Gus urged.
The opportunity was growing smaller by the second.
James was already exchanging a glance with his wife and daughter, formulating a subconscious plan. They had been able to gather their thoughts and they were edging away from each other.
Stacey was getting closer to Gus so that the shot wouldn’t be risked in her direction. James was edging further to the left, and Trisha to the right. Gus recognised this as a tactic he’d employ – widening the space between the targets, meaning that if Donny took a shot at one of them, the other would have the opportunity to intervene and wrestle the gun from him.
“I – I – don’t move!”
“Donny, fucking shoot them!”
Donny’s finger poised over the trigger. He pointed it at James. Took aim.
And failed.
Backed down.
Dropped the gun to his side.
Sweat trickled down his cheek. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
He’d bottled it.
34
Gus’s eyes were fixed on the gun hanging by Donny’s side, gripped in his hand but loosely swinging, like a child with their favourite doll.
He bowed his head, closing his eyes, filling with disappointment.
This was Donny’s opportunity.
The point where Donny could have proven his worth.
Where he could have redeemed his past failures. And all he had to do was kill a family of cannibals about to kill and eat
Gus.
James and Trisha exchanged a knowing look, as if they had somehow expected this little boy to let Gus down.
They moved back toward each other, removing the gap they had created, and walked toward Donny.
“It’s okay, my friend,” James told Donny. “Just give me the gun and this will all be fine.”
“Give you the gun?” Donny repeated.
He lifted the gun in his shaking hands.
No, Donny.
Gus willed him to be stronger.
Gus willed him not to relinquish the only chance they had.
“That’s it,” James continued, standing beside his wife, now just yards from Donny. “Just hand it to me.”
“Okay,” Donny confirmed. “I will.”
James held out his hand.
Donny pointed the gun at James’s head and shot him in the face. His skull blew into pieces that scattered over the bushes and trees, and his headless body fell to the floor.
Before Gus could catch his breath, Donny turned to Trisha and shot. She was already running away, meaning his elusive aim was unlikely to hit her, but a bullet did manage to skim her shoulder
“No!” Stacey screamed out. “Mommy! Daddy!”
Stacey looked to Donny with eyes of fake demented terror.
Donny aimed at the girl.
But he couldn’t. Not a child.
“Allow me.” Gus stood, snatched the gun from Donny’s hand, and pointed it at the girl.
“You wouldn’t shoot an innocent little girl. Would you, mister?”
She pulled the best puppy-dog eyes Gus had ever seen.
Gus blew three rounds into her chest, each one shoving her further back until she fell onto the floor.
He aimed at Trisha, but she had already disappeared into the distance.
Gus immediately turned his attention to Donny.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded, not knowing whether to feel aggrieved or relieved.
“They were standing too far apart,” Donny admitted. “I needed them to get closer.”
Gus smirked. For what must be the first time in months, he felt a smile spread from cheek to cheek.
“You are full of surprises. Ain’t you, kid?”
Donny looked to the bodies slumped on the floor.
“Come on,” Gus instructed Donny, “If any infected heard the gunshots, they’d be on their way by now.”
Gus charged through the bushes, pushing them out of the way. He stopped once he realised he was alone.
He edged back to the opening, where Donny still absently stood.
“Hey, Donny, come on!”
Donny couldn’t move.
Gus marched back to Donny’s side and grabbed his arm, trying to turn him around. He wouldn’t budge.
“What are you doing?” he interrogated.
“I did this…” Donny asked.
Tears cascaded down Donny’s cheeks.
“You had to, mate.”
“I did this. I ki – I actually… I can’t believe I…”
“You what?”
“I ki – I ki –”
“You killed them, Donny. You need to say it.”
Donny shook his head.
Gus could hear distant snarls growing closer.“Say it, kid, or you ain’t ever going to be able to move.”
“I can’t…”
“Hear that sound? That’s a horde coming this way. We need to go.”
Donny covered his face.
Gus grabbed hold of Donny’s arms and threw them aside. Donny’s eyes were scrunched closed, so Gus smacked him around the face to force them to open.
“Look at me!”
Donny did as he was told.
“Repeat after me. I killed them.”
“No.”
“Do it!”
Donny looked deep into Gus’s eyes, seeing his resolve, his adamant determination that Donny would verbalise what he did. Donny knew he needed to. He could hear them getting closer. He knew they weren’t far away.
“I…”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“I killed them, Gus.”
“Yeah.” Gus nodded. Donny went to look away, but Gus lifted his head by the chin, forcing Donny to look into his eyes. “You did. You fuckin’ killed them. An’ I’m grateful for it. ’Cause if you didn’t, I’d be dead, and so would you. You did the right thing.”
“I did?”
“Yes. Now move your feet.”
Gus grabbed hold of Donny’s arm and dragged him forward with enough strength that he couldn’t have stayed rooted to the spot if he’d tried to. He dragged him away, forcing him through the wooded area.
Eventually, Donny’s legs began shuffling. Gus was able to loosen his grip, then remove his arm entirely. He kept listening to Donny’s behind him, keeping pace, until they reached the car.
35
They drove in silence for longer than Donny could account for. His head leant against the window, watching the barren wastelands and deserted charcoal houses go by. Barely twenty seconds would go without them shooting past an upturned car, an abandoned, broken-down house, or a mutilated corpse.
He was almost becoming used to the sight. An hour previous and the thought of death filled him with dread. Now he had taken a life, he simply looked upon the bodies as unfortunate souls. Their faces were ripped apart, their brains bursting through their eye sockets, intestines spilling out of ripped skin – their way of going out was far better than those he had stolen lives from, and that was the way he had to look at it.
He initially couldn’t move. Just watching the bodies slump helplessly onto the floor, not getting back up again. He had waited, expecting them to retaliate, to jump up and march toward him and beat him to death as an act of impotent revenge.
They didn’t.
They just stayed there, on the floor – a mother fleeing from a father and daughter, falling over each other’s bodies.
Gus had to drag him away.
Donny had wanted to leave, had wanted to escape the sight, run away from what he’d done. He had willed Gus to throw him over his shoulder and take him kicking and screaming out of there.
But hadn’t been able to move.
His legs had felt like lead, as if heavy weights were attached to his ankles by thick rope. He wanted to be sick, yet at the same time, found his stomach empty.
People were dead.
Because of him.
He closed his eyes. There they were again.
“It was six months ago,” Gus spoke, suddenly interrupting Donny’s mental monologue.
“What?”
“It was six months ago, and it was just after the infection, or whatever it is, had hit. The whole of London turned to bedlam. I didn’t know what was going on, what was happening, whether it was just there, the whole country, I did not know. All I knew was what my instinct told me, and it told me it was bad, and I had to hurry, I had to…”
Donny focussed intently on Gus. He studied the contours of his face, only to find an expression he had not seen in him before. Gus didn’t turn and look at Donny, he kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him. One could be fooled into thinking that this was to drive safely, but Donny knew better.
“Had to what?” Donny asked.
“Had to… get back to my family.” His eyes flicked downwards momentarily, then he readjusted his vision back to the road ahead. “I had to get back to my wife. Get back to my daughter.”
Donny looked over his shoulder at Sadie, who had woken up and leant forward. Even with the poor grasp she appeared to have on the English language, the emotions engraved across Gus’s face were enough to intrigue her subdued attention.
“So that’s what I did,” Gus continued. “My leg was killing, the bullet lodged in it, it kept me limping. But if it weren’t for that damn bullet, I’d have still been in Afghanistan, and would have been nowhere near my family, and would have stood no chance at helping them. Hell, I don’t even know if the troops over there know what’s goin
g on. It was the only time I felt grateful for being discharged. It had felt like such a disgrace, but in that moment, in that quick, fiery thought, I felt like it was a gift from God.”
Gus snorted.
“A gift from God, eh? How pathetic is that. If anything, the only thing this shit has done has either confirmed that there is no God, or if there is, he is an arsehole who needs a good swift punch in the face.”
He wiped his hands through his hair, keeping his eyes glued ahead.
Donny said nothing.
“I didn’t realise at the time that London was turning into the cesspit of it all, but I knew it was going to be quarantined, and I knew I hadn’t long to get them out. I had contacts in the army that may have let me through the edge of the city, but that meant nothing without my family with me. So I got on the motorbike, I raced back, but they… They were…”
Gus thumped the steering wheel. In a sudden burst of aggression his face turned to a rabid snarl, then abruptly morphed back to inconsolable anguish.
Donny didn’t move his eyes away from Gus’s. He was transfixed.
Gus slowed the car down, gradually, until it came to a full halt. He put the handbrake on, switched off the engine, and sat still. He stared at a spot on the road and did not remove his eyes from it.
“They were already there. So many of them. They had filled my house. I could see my neighbours as I passed them, I could see them fighting, I could see them dying, but worst of all – I could see those bastards, those… fuckers – charging my house.”
He dropped his head, still not turning his head toward Donny or Sadie. Still keeping his eyes staring anywhere but them.
“I got in, I killed a load, but – but it was too late. My wife, and my daughter, they were already…”
Gus lifted his head, turning it slightly toward Donny, but still staring at the ground, still unable to lift his eyes.
“My wife had even ripped the legs off of my daughter. Our daughter.”
A difficult silence lingered in the air for a few seconds.
“I killed them. I had to. I couldn’t let them live. So I killed them. I got my gun, and I shot the undead walking corpses of my wife, and my daughter, in the face.”