"State your business."
"We heard your broadcast on the radio," Rick shouted. "We're looking for sanctuary."
"What have you brought with you?" was the unexpected response.
"We're not bitten," Rick replied. "We're no threat to you."
"That wasn't the question," said the voice behind the wall.
"We have a car; it has fuel. We have clothes and food and some basic medicines," I shouted out.
This time there was no sarcastic response. "Where's the car then?" the voice asked. A fair question.
"We left it just up the road. We didn't want you to think we were aggressive." I thought I heard a snort in response to that.
"Trust me, if we thought you were going to cause us any trouble you wouldn't have made it this far. Wait there."
I heard more chatter, none of which I could make out. I thought I could hear radio static, but that again might have been my imagination. I then heard the rumble of an engine, which was surprising. I turned around and saw our BMW trundling towards us. Both of the front seats were filled. From the passenger side, someone wound down the window and waved, though whether it was sarcastically at us or in victory to his friends inside I didn't know. The gates, however, sounded like they were opening. I didn't make a move, as I assumed it was to let their newly acquired motor into the compound. I mouthed at Rick.
"You left in the fucking keys?" I raised my eyebrows to emphasise my incredulity. He waved his arms, helplessly embarrassed. They were only weak bargaining chips, and if they hadn't got us in they were our safety net. Now we had nothing and we were at the mercy of the unknown. The car passed through the gates and the voice behind the wall shouted out again.
"Come on. We haven't got all day. Don't know what might be following you in out there."
I couldn't believe our luck but didn't take time in digesting what the voice had said. I fairly sprinted through the gates, watching them begin to close even as we made it through. My jaw dropped. I was amazed with what I saw.
* * *
"Nice houses, ain't they?" Putting a face to the voice behind the wall, and closing my mouth when I realised I was gaping, I proffered a hand for him to shake. He was a young man, pleasant-looking despite being built like the proverbial outhouse. He was clean shaven and tanned, with an easy grin and gleaming white teeth. I tried to not look intimidated by the size of his frame, but it was difficult. I glanced at the arm that was helping shake my shoulder out of my socket. His bicep looked thicker than my thigh. "I'm Richard. People call me Rich. I'm in charge of security here at the community. Sorry to take your car, but I've got my orders. You've got to be clean, and everyone who comes in needs to bring something of worth. Do either of you have a trade?"
"I... no I don't think journalism is going to be very useful for you." I was already adjusting his name in my head to Godzilla.
"How about your friend?"
Rick stepped forward, offering his own name and shaking hands. "Nothing practical here I'm afraid either. But we've both got plenty of experience dealing with the outside world if you catch my drift."
"I do, and that's useful enough in its own way. We always need bodies to help either side of the wall. I'm sure you'll be very welcome. But when I said we've got to make sure you're clean, I meant it. I can't take you by your word that you're not bitten."
Rick looked a little incredulous. "You want us to strip?"
Rich laughed. "What are you afraid of? We're not going to bite. It's easier if we just get this out of the way now all peaceably. We don't let anyone that's bitten anywhere near the rest of the community. They were easy about this in the early days and, well, let's just say that didn't work out well for anybody concerned."
"But we're out in the open!"
"So? If you've got nothing to hide then you've got nothing to fear. What's the matter? Small cock? Trust me, mate, no one gives a fuck what's between your legs as long as it hasn't been chewed off by one of the infected. Now," he brought a gun to bear, holding it by his side for now in a peaceful enough manner, but showing the menace for what it was. "Are you going to help me out with this, or am I going to have to turn you back outside the gates?"
I pulled off my tee and started unbuttoning my jeans. I was in the 'couldn't give a fuck' camp, and the sooner we got past 'security' the sooner we could get settled in.
"Here," I said, tugging at my trouser legs. "How many people do you get coming in here? We didn't see many others on the road."
"You don't see many living out there now." Rich looked sad. I wanted to ask him his story, but I held off. "Our recons are coming across less and less. You're the first living we've had approach the walls today. There were loads in the first week of the outbreak—we set up here pretty early on some local government advice—but it's started tailing off in the last few days. There was a little flurry a couple of days back, but nothing since until you two."
"Have you had a woman come in? She'd have been with a middle-aged man, looking about her dad's age. Her name's..."
"Carla."
I was struggling on one leg as I heard the woman's voice. I couldn't keep my balance together. In shock, I fell over. Rich and a few other voices cracked up laughing. So did Carla; although she also leant down to hook an arm under me and help me back up. I looked ridiculous with my top half naked and my jeans mostly off. Still, I couldn't help but wrap my arms around my little sister and covet her with the biggest hug I think I had ever given her in my life. She giggled, coughing as I constricted around her ribs and snorted as I set her back down again. She looked up at me, her eyes bright with tears. Rick approached her then, more placid than I had been, but infinitely more graceful considering he still had all of his clothes on. Seeing no point in going all coy now, I finished pulling off my jeans.
"Does this really need to be naked?" I asked Rich. He nodded solemnly. I looked for a hint of jest in his eyes but found none. "Then if you don't mind, I'll wait until the lady isn't here."
"Who's a lady now eh, Warren? Keep your pride. I've missed you, big brother. I'll be at my house. Can you bring them when they've been cleared Rich? I have a lot of catching up to do. I still... I still can't believe you came looking for me."
She squeezed me again and ran off, presumably to her house, whatever that meant. Rick and I finished the strip check. When we were both cleared, Rich told us he would walk us to the final check.
"And that's booking you in."
That sounded official. With Carla already found though, I was blindsided. There didn't seem to be anything left to do but submit ourselves to and join with the community. Carla clearly already had. Where the fuck was Austin? The story might have been over, but there were still a lot of unanswered questions I needed to go through. Rick looked a little stunned, too. I think he had been expecting to find Austin here without Carla, or neither of them. I think he would have been happier with just Austin. That way he could have played the part of grieving boyfriend, venting at her captor and possibly taking some violent Shakespearian revenge to satisfy the slight. With neither of them here, he could have given up on the chase entirely, as he had been hinting in the car. Now? Well now, he had to resume the role of happy and loyal boyfriend, and I wasn't sure he wanted to.
I still wasn't past gaping at the houses we were walking past. They were phenomenal. I'd seen glamour reports covering these places. They were the kind of residence I expected footballers and celebrity lawyers to live in. Each was detached with a fair chunk of garden. Not all of them were set back from the empty road. Almost every single home I saw was huge. I took to assuming that any smaller structure was an outbuilding, garage, or home for staff. Rich took us to one of these said buildings. It was a garage. The cars were still in it. As I walked through the open shutters, I saw two Bentleys side by side. This so-called garage space was larger than most flats I’d encountered in the capital. I conservatively estimated that you could get two of my flats into a space of this size. Between the two cars, someone had positioned a c
ouple of desks. One was empty, and the other was covered with neat little stacks of paper, each one weighted down with a single red brick. There was writing on the top of the brick in black permanent marker, but I couldn't make out the lettering. Behind one desk there sat two people, one male and one female. They had their heads bent together and seemed deep in discussion. Rich stopped us just inside the garage and coughed, politely trying to get their attention. They both looked up and smiled, the woman rising to wander off on some other unspoken business.
"Richard, what have you brought for me today? Salvage or voluntary?"
"Voluntary sir. Approached the gates just now. They're clean."
"Talents?"
"None, sir, but they did bring supplies."
"The supplies are on their way?"
"I assume so, sir, I left Mark in charge of the car."
The man behind the desk, of enough importance to be addressed as sir, acknowledged these facts. "Thank you, Richard. You can return to the gates. Was it a nice car? Yes, I can see it was. Please make sure Mark brings it to me as quickly as possible. I don't want any of the same issues we had last time." The man looked at me and Rick as if seeing us for the first time. "He had a little bit of a joyride you see. Didn't get to drive very much in the real world. Crashed into a wall. An inside wall, I hasten to add. Still, it was all a bit unnecessary and overtly sloppy. We don't like sloppy in the community."
Who was this guy? He was OCD, if his little piles were anything to go by. He was skinny and, whilst his inflection was slightly effeminate, I didn't want to come to any conclusions. That was a sure-fire way of alienating people, as Rick so obviously expected me to do. He had a curiously neat goatee and smooth combed-back hair. I could picture him easily being an artist or a director or something equally creative. In the community, he appeared to be an administrator.
"Travis, will book you two in. He'll allocate you a home, and...well he'll take it from here."
Rich left and we were left with the thin smile of Travis for company. Rick made a gesture to shake hands, and Travis looked at him as if he were stale milk. I tried not to smile. Travis wasn't a shake-hands kind of man.
"So, no skills. There must be enough in your car to warrant your entry. Otherwise Richard wouldn't have let you in this far. He is not a clever man, but he knows what orders are. He always follows those orders. I will therefore forgo holding you until we complete inventory. Now," he handed us each a plain piece of paper and a pen, "I want your names—your full names—your dates of birth and every profession you had back in the real world. I would like to know any medical issues you have, especially any you may have needed medication for. I would also like you to write, in short bulleted sentences please, any observations you may have made on the undead in your time on the outside."
Writing. Now this, I could do. I gladly took the offered sheet and set to writing. Rick had stopped and handed his back by the time I turned the sheet. When I had finished, my hand was aching, stiff from the clasp of holding a pen. It had been a ridiculously long time since I'd written anything freehand. Travis took the paper from me between his thumb and his forefinger, making a squeezed face that gave me the impression he treated everything he came into contact with as infectious. He took a glance at the head of my paper.
"Journalist. Hmm, I might have guessed." He lifted a brick and put both mine and Rick's papers underneath it. When it was settled back in place, I saw the brick was labelled 'process'. It was a small pile. The largest pile was 'female'. There was another pile, 'dead', and I was glad to see that pile too was reasonably thin. "Now there's not a lot of flexibility with accommodations here, but some people do have... requirements. So if you have any kind of, ahem, preference then speak them now."
"You already have a resident here. Her name is Carla Fielding. We would both like to live with her."
Travis looked up at me from underneath thin frowning eyebrows. "You both wish to live with this woman?"
Rick grunted his ascent. "Look at my surname. She's my sister," I added to his Neanderthal snort.
"Sister. Okay. Okay, Mr Fielding, one second." Travis flicked through the corner of the female pile. He pulled out a sheet, muttering some words to himself. He put this down on the desk before pulling at another sheet on the far side of the desk. He scanned down this with his finger, yammering incoherently. "Yes, Mr Fielding. I do believe we can cater for your wishes. Carla is at Number forty-two."
"That's great. Where is forty-two?"
"All the houses are numbered. Not their old numbers—we've painted the doors. They're numbered in order from the gates. You won't be assigned any duties today, so take your time to get to know the community, especially the geography and space. You'll be defending it, so it's in your best interests to pay attention to all the little details."
Travis waved at us and went back to shuffling around his pieces of paper. I examined the top of his head for a dozen or so seconds, seeing if he would pay us any more heed. We were dismissed, it seemed. Travis struck me as a very odd man. Odd, but in a position of great knowledge. And, therefore, in a position of high power.
CHAPTER FIVE
Number forty-two was no less impressive than any of the other houses we had seen today. The sun was beginning to dip on the horizon. The sky was wounded with long lashes of deep purple, and the temperature was plummeting as the heat left the air. We approached a building that was wider than it was high—two storeys of what even I could recognise as art deco. The new house number had been daubed on to the white front door in thick black paint, and was unmistakeable even from a distance. We were at the back end of the community. The walls were visible, and I could see a platform that was not part of the original building plans. There was a person on top of it faced away from the rest of us. Rich must have a few dozen of those sentry posts manned to keep a full watch on the circumference. It was a good idea though. There was no telling what angle an attack might come from. Better safe than sorry.
Rick tugged at the front door and it opened freely and silently. I could hear soft laughter coming from inside. Travis had told us we would be lodging with Carla, but he hadn't told us about who else we would be living with. I was nervous. This wasn't like the other encounters we had experienced. I felt thoroughly uncomfortable, as if I was about to interrupt a family in the middle of their Sunday lunch. Rick held back too. The laughing got louder. I steeled myself. This was silly. Of course, it was nothing like the other encounters. No one was trying to kill us, and nothing was trying to eat us.
Following the encouragingly lilting noise brought us to a spacious living room. The previous owner had a liking of cleanliness and straight lines, it seemed. The carpets were white, and so were the two over-large sofas at right angles from each other. The carpet was stained with booted prints. The cleaner wasn't coming back to work. I took a tip from Rich's book of etiquette and coughed to get their attention. It worked, and five sets of eyes turned to face us. One belonged to Carla. She leapt off the sofa to encompass Rick and me in a tight embrace. Then she languidly wrapped her arms around Rick's neck and greeted him in the way you'd expect. I didn't want to see that kind of thing and left them to it to introduce myself to the rest of the group.
The other four on the sofa were arranged in the time-honoured positioning of couples the world over. The women both ensconced themselves by their men, but next to each other so that they could chat uninterrupted. They occupied the joining corners of the sofa so that the men didn't have to bellow at each other. It looked for the world like a dinner party, but sadly without the vodka and the olives. Well, the olives weren't a loss. Knowing how shit I was with names, I smiled blandly as I was introduced to Tracey and Rob, and Rachael and David. I shook hands, informing them I was Warren, Carla's brother. This was met with incredulous squeaks from the women as it was exclaimed that they had been told all about me and couldn't wait to meet me. They advised me that it was simply impossible that we'd managed to make it here, and it was utterly romantic that Rick had
followed his girlfriend. I left them to that particular fantasy, deciding it could be Rick's punishment to field any suitably awkward questions they would have for him on his undying love for their friend Carla. The men seemed more interested in my survival story. As Rick and Carla seated themselves, with Rick being predictably swamped by the over-excited women, I was more than happy to recount the tale of how we got here. Their own questions were very absent of our reasons for following Carla, however, and completely devoid of any suggestion that she might have been brought here against her own will. I elected to keep those details out of my stories.
* * *
I had no idea how much later it was that we were interrupted. There was no clock in my line of sight. Someone had let themselves in our front door and I was creeped out at how long they might have been standing there listening to our conversation without being noticed. I was delighted to be in a massive house and back with my sister, but it seemed I would have to get used to living in what was effectively a hippy commune, with people expecting to be able to come and go as they please. Conversations died down as we all politely stopped to acknowledge our newcomers. I recognised Travis, and saw two others with me. One, I didn't recognise. Carla's hand clamped on my shoulder and pushed me back down in my seat as I recognised the last. She did the same to Rick.
"Uh... hello, guys."
I scowled. "Hello, Austin."
Austin fidgeted. He was between Travis and another stocky man. I spotted Rich, too, huddling in the doorway. I think he was trying to look inconspicuous. It was like having a literal elephant in the room.
"I... uh... Travis and Gordon said that I should... uh... come to speak to you. To clear the air. Before you ran into me in the community and got the wrong idea."
"Got the wrong idea?" I repeated.
"Warren." Carla gave me a warning shot, which I listened to. If she wasn't trying to rip his balls off with her bare hands, there was a good reason. Or, at least, a reason that I had to appreciate.
Great Bitten (Book 2): Survival Page 7