by RR Haywood
An explosion of force erupts. A thing so powerful it feels like she’s lifted from her feet. In that second she sees the fighters in the flat rising to their feet and running as one to come bursting through the door at ground level. Paco bursts away to go with them as though captured by whatever instinct propels them. In that second she too erupts but with the single thought that he will die if goes out there. She rams into him with every ounce of strength, taking him off his feet into the wall. As he rallies to rise she clambers to block him. Her face snarling with the pressure of the rage threatening to burst her apart. It isn’t their fight. This is their ground. They stay here. He stays here. He tries to rise again as the scream outside ends abruptly. Still she forces him down. Ramming her hands into his shoulders to pin him against the wall. He could snap her in half. He could fling her aside with ease. One arm of his could throw her out the window but he doesn’t. He is a dangerous monster that snarls and growls and rages but she holds him there to honour the unspoken vow given to Becky.
The battle outside starts again but a hundred times worse than before. A detonation of unbridled wanton fury. Noises charge the air. Single gunshots. Shouts from hoarse voices. The wet sound of bodies being torn and shredded but still she holds him, refusing to let him move an inch. His back slides down the wall. His legs splay out in surrender of the moment. She sinks down with him, sitting over his lap with that pulsing energy still thrumming inside both of them. Her hands find his face to cup and tilt up.
‘We can’t,’ she whispers the words on a breath that quavers and trembles. ‘We have to stay here…we can’t go…not our fight…not ours…we stay here…’ she nods to give force to her words. She swallows the tension that continues to grow. Tears form to fall and spill down her cheeks, venting the pressure inside. ‘Not our fight,’ she whispers soft and gentle, full of emotion. ‘Not our fight…not our fight…’ she keeps nodding, crying and weeping for the sound of the child screaming out and the righteous glory of the battle those outside give. ‘Stay here yeah…we’ll stay here…stay here…yeah?’ a command becomes a question. A need to be vouched and agreed with. Too much pressure. Too much emotion. Too much rage and fear. Too many days of relentless feelings that surge up and down. Too much running. Too much hope gained then lost to be found again only to be dashed. She feels his cheeks become wet and sees the tears coming from his eyes. She sobs harder for that single thing. The sobs break out from her chest. His arms come up to wrap and hold. She sinks lower. Her head pressing into his. It’s too much. All of it is too much. Every reaction done on instinct and gut feeling from the thing that happens the second before. Her heart swells to break over and over.
In the pure desperation of that moment her head lowers for her lips to gently brush against his cheek mere millimetres from the corner of his mouth. She holds still, forever frozen in that moment with everything inside breaking apart. He twitches as though to meet her lips but the contact remains unmade. They can’t kiss. What he has could kill her, turn her, make her one of those beasts outside. They’ve shared a water bottle but a kiss is a risk is too great. The emotional need for comfort in the anguish of the night brings a temptation almost too great to resist.
Outside the battle wages on and slowly recedes to a distance that speaks of survivors running with infected chasing. She hopes the people survive. She wills them to survive but she stays there, holding her lips so close to his in a position that holds them both still.
Time passes. An explosion comes. A fireball sent scorching high into the heavens that gives light to the room from the flames searing the sky. The shock wave comes next. A pressure that builds and pops as the walls shake and the floor beneath them vibrates. The moisture in the air is taken away, absorbed by the heat of a fire they know nothing about but still they hold.
The seven children sleep to rest and recover to be ready to run so for now they stay locked in yearning for a kiss that cannot be taken.
Thirty Seven
It was the only way to get through it. She knows that. It was the culmination of all the things that happened yesterday that brought them to remain almost kissing. They stayed like that for hours. Absorbed entirely in a thing that could not be had but it worked. It got them through the urge to go outside and fight.
Now the daylight comes and the mystery of the night seems to vanish as the sun lifts to reveal a scene of utter carnage.
They slept. She knows they did. At some point they went into the kitchen and bedded down against the closed door. He slept too. She saw it when she woke. His eyes were closed and his breathing was that of a man asleep. Her motion brought him awake. The movement as she lifted from resting at his side to sit up and look around at the sleeping bodies.
Now she stares out the window at the square while the children drink water and eat whatever food is left. The stench in the bathroom is awful. Piss and shit that can’t be flushed for fear of the noise it will make. They’ll be gone soon though. There’s no need to stay here. Everything is dead.
Tens of thousands of bodies torn, ripped and left to rot. The flies have already come to hover and rest to lay eggs to hatch maggots that will writhe and speed the decay. It doesn’t offend her now. It is what it is. The scale is bigger than anything before but death is death. There’s only so much shock you can feel before something in the mind shuts off.
She spots the trail of bodies stretching to the road on the north side and away out of sight to a plume of thick black smoke drifting into the air from whatever blew up last night. The army truck is gone. How she doesn’t know. Why or when either. Only that it isn’t here now. All the doors to the flats on the other side are open and it’s silent outside. She looks again to the road then up to the smoke rising in the air. It’s almost like the army people led them in that direction on purpose. They can’t still be alive. Not after that. No way. An internal voice disagrees and counters her opinion by inviting her to look again at the bodies below. How did so few kill so many? How did Paco kill a dozen with his bare hands in TK Maxx then walk out like nothing happened. Maybe the people in the army truck are like him. Christ, imagine that? A dozen Paco’s able to do what he does. She blinks and holds that thought that suddenly isn’t so far-fetched. She thinks back to the times she saw Paco kill. The village with that lad running by the duck pond. The others in the town she first met him. She thinks back to the first night and how he seemed almost weak in comparison to what he is now. She turns to look at him standing in the doorway staring at her. His eyes shining with intelligence. His poise and countenance dignified. A dozen of him would be devastating. He doesn’t feel pain. He doesn’t get tired like normal people. He needs less water and food. Even now he looks healthy despite the wounds and injuries, and even those are healing at a rate that just isn’t right.
She looks outside again with a self-reflection that despite the day yesterday she too feels healthy and well. Her muscles don’t ache like they should after running so far for so long. She had maybe two hours sleep? She should be exhausted, drained and ready to sleep forever. She tenses her thighs, testing the level of pain she feels. They do hurt a bit but nothing like they should. She rolls her head side to side. Her neck doesn’t hurt either. She was in a car crash yesterday but that pain is all gone.
‘Subi…’ she turns to stride across the lounge as the young girl comes running from the kitchen. She was about to ask if her eyes are red and bloodshot but stops the question coming out. Instead she rushes into the stench filled bathroom to the mirror above the sink and checks her reflection with her heart hammering in her chest.
‘What?’ Subi asks, following her to the doorway.
‘Nothing,’ Heather says. Her eyes are normal. No, not normal. She looks healthy. Too healthy. She doesn’t have bags under her eyes. Her cheeks have colour. ‘How do you feel?’ she turns to Subi, nodding for the girl to answer.
‘Tired,’ Subi says, staring strangely at Heather.
‘Tired how?’
‘I’m tired.’
&
nbsp; ‘Do your legs hurt?’
‘They ache from running yester…’
‘Yeah mine too,’ Heather says quickly. Subi looks exhausted. Bags under her eyes. She looks ready to drop despite just waking up. ‘Is everyone ready?’
‘Ready? Are we going?’
‘We are. To the fort…’
‘But…’
‘They’re all dead,’ Heather cuts her off. She walks into the kitchen to stare round at the faces of the children all looking wan and drained. ‘Drink more water,’ she says while trying to ignore the panicky feeling rising inside. She felt them last night. She felt the people after that child screamed. She felt the energy surging up and the absolute need to be with them. A dozen Paco’s with his strength and ability to heal all from an infection that was in his blood. That is still in his blood. ‘Everyone ready? We have to go and…Amna, what are you doing?’
‘Carry,’ Amna says lifting her arms to Paco with an expectation of immediate compliance.
‘No. You can walk but everyone needs to…okay then,’ she stops in surprise at Paco bending to lift Amna up into his arms before the pair of them look over for her to continue. ‘Right well, you’re not staying there all day, Amna.’
‘Am.’
‘You are not, you can walk and…’
‘Am.’
‘Whatever, everyone just stay quiet. Like yesterday. No noise. Not a word…’
‘Shit.’
‘Amna, I said no speaking. No noise.’
‘Shit shit shit.’
She looks again at Amna, at the glowing complexion of health. Mind you she was carried all of yesterday. But still, is she? No. She can’t be.
‘Amna, are you tired?’
‘Yep,’ Amna says with a look of alarm at the prospect of being made to walk.
‘Really? Are you? You don’t have to walk but I want to know…I give up actually. Come on. Tommy, you okay?’
The lad nods but doesn’t speak. He hasn’t spoken all morning. Heather feels she should say something but what do you say to someone like this?
‘Let’s go,’ she hefts the bag on her back and leads off down the hallway, machete in hand. She’d sharpen the blade if she knew how. She’d carry a flame thrower too if she had one and drive a tank but she doesn’t. So instead she grips the machete and opens the door to a landing that looks the same as yesterday.
Down the stairs. Into the yard. Through the gate and into the street that is the same as yesterday save for the corpses of the infected Becky cut down. Which way? The fort is south. She looks up to the sky. It’s early. The sun is still rising so that means that direction is east. It’s not precise but for want of anything else she guesses south and starts moving.
Silence hangs over the ruined town. A silence that presses down. Empty streets. Empty roads. Corpses scattered everywhere. Blood on the floor, on the walls, smeared on cars and across windows. It needs to be burnt down and removed from existence. If she had the flame thrower she’d start it off and walk away without a glance back. This town is the future of a life to come. Ruins of places that will become like the Roman buildings that still stand and speak of a civilisation that tore itself apart. The only difference is there won’t be a future people to understand where these ruins came from. Everyone will be dead. It’s been nineteen days since it began and if this is what the world looks like now then give it a month or a year. There won’t be anything other than empty towns and decaying corpses. One thought leads to another until she’s back wondering who the hell the people in the army truck are and why they don’t stop for survivors in the towns they fight and kill the infected in. Isn’t that what they’re doing? An ethnic cleansing of a new species. It’s genocide. There’s no other word for it. That’s it the right thing to be doing is without doubt but it’s still genocide. Why don’t they stop and take the survivors from the towns to their fort or arm the people or give them some instructions at the very least. Tell the people to fortify their towns. Find weapons. Gather food. Stay together with strength in numbers. It doesn’t make sense.
That bleakness keeps them quiet. Words spoken here are not right. She follows the road that leads south and away from the town. The first country lane they come to facing the right direction is taken. If it means a longer trek then so be it. A lesson learnt and one cemented in her mind. Towns are bad. The countryside is safer.
It’s still hot. The water they took from the flat is consumed. Again she notices the difference from the children to her and Paco, and possibly Amna too. They three don’t complain about the fatigue from yesterday. They look healthier. They walk stronger. Well, Amna doesn’t walk but lounges languid and content in Paco’s arms before being hoisted to ride on his shoulders. Why is Amna like that and not any of the others? She looks round at the children. Three of them she doesn’t know. Two boys and a girl. The youngest boy is Tommy’s brother. The girl blond haired, maybe seven years old and hasn’t said a word all morning but she looks as exhausted as the others, walking with heavy feet and empty eyes cast at the ground.
She thinks about taking a car again but something quells that notion with an instinct she is learning to trust. Walking is better. You can see further ahead and hear the environment. You can smell the air and the feel of the place you are in. A car is fast but you can’t see what’s coming until you are there. A car also needs to go on roads whereas she can cross fields and meadows and go through places a car can’t go. As long as she keeps heading south they will find the coast then work it out from there. That’s what she does. She takes them through fields, across motorways, across roads and round anything that looks like a village or a town. They climb hills and descend valley sides to walk through crops that will never be harvested. Fields of wheat, corn and rapeseed. The morning passes. Afternoon comes. They stop at an empty farmhouse just long enough to drink water and refill water bottles and set off again. The pace is not fast but just unrelenting. The children stay quiet. Their spirits crushed from everything seen and done. Heather doesn’t give kind words as this is not a time for softness but for the brutality of survival. She made a vow to Becky who sacrificed herself so Heather can keep the children alive and get them to the fort, and they are alive, they’re hot, tired, quiet and exhausted but they’re alive.
Late afternoon and they trudge up yet another hill with faces wet from perspiration and clothes clinging to frames. Everyone breathing hard. Faces flushed and red. The sun is already starting to drift down towards the far horizon. Amna sleeps. Her head resting on the top of Paco’s. Becky’s youngest son in his arms also asleep. Heather doesn’t know his name.
‘What?’ Heather looks up to see Subi standing at the top of the hill staring away to the distance. ‘See something? Get back…’
‘It’s fine,’ Subi says, not turning round.
Heather sighs and keeps going to join the girl at the top to swallow and stare out at the view stretching over miles of rolling countryside to the blue expanse of sea glittering in the distance. The view is breath-taking. Gorgeous and filled with so many hues of greens that she can’t help but feel a lift of spirits that this tainted filthy world can still show such a thing.
‘The sea,’ Subi says, quietly, as though to herself. The rest of the children reach the top to stand in a line looking out. Paco stops next to Heather. His face glistening with sweat.
‘Where’s the fort?’ Rajesh asks, looking up at Heather.
‘Don’t know. We’ll find it. Ready?’
She sets off down the hill, leading them towards the distant promise of the sea. She has no idea how far it is or how long it will take to reach but she can tell the evening is approaching. Another few hours and it will be dark. Irritation rises. She wants to keep going to get them out of harms away but they can’t walk in the darkness. That means finding somewhere again. They need food too so she rules out the prospect of a barn this time. Unless they find food first then look for a barn but that means less time walking to close the distance.
Rooftops in the
distance. Clusters of houses grouped together. Houses are dangerous. Villages are dangerous. Everywhere is dangerous and what happens when they reach the sea? Which way then? Left or right? She needs a map to go with the food and the place to sleep. Needs wants and desires. The essentials you need to survive. The things you want for comfort and the things you desire. She looks at Paco knowing what she desires the most. Him. Just him. To be alone with him walking at their own pace. She wants what they had before. She wants to sit across his lap and feed him, even if he can speak and feed himself she still wants to do it. She wants him to heal and get better. What she needs though is food and a place for the night suitable for seven children.
She aims for a building glimpsed from the hillside hoping it will be a single property stocked with enough food for all of them. Her mind keeps going back to last night. To all the things that happened. It’s like a dream now. Almost like it never happened. The battle didn’t take place. She didn’t feel that pulse of energy. She didn’t almost kiss Paco. It wasn’t real.
By the time they reach the road the day is almost gone with a darkness creeping into the sky. She leads them on the road towards the house glimpsed from the hillside, cursing that they’ve lost the ability to gain more distance. The light is fading fast. The green hues of the landscape grow deeper, darker. Shadows are forming. The heat of the day finally starts to wane as the house comes into view. A single detached brick built cottage with old sash windows covered in peeling flaky paint. It will have to do. The children are exhausted, they need rest and food.
They approach with only the tread of their feet making noise. Heather watches carefully, scanning the windows for signs of life and seeing none. The house is set back behind a jungle of an overgrown front garden. Thick weeds sprouting through the long grass covering the broken path leading to the old wooden door. The whole house looks decrepit and unlived in. The chances of finding food here will be slim. If nothing else they’ll have water and shelter for the night and it’s only dark for a few hours this time of year. They can be up and moving again by dawn.