by RR Haywood
As she moves so his hand comes up to cup her face. She hesitates at his touch. Unaware of the shotgun falling but only seeing the need in his eyes. She goes back quickly, hungrily. He moves to meet her to hold and never let go. Not now. Not ever. The equilibrium shifts the furthest yet. He is a monster but the man inside in him finds her head to grip and hold with the gentle power of a beast thrumming through his arms and heart. He doesn’t let her go. He will never let her go. He will stand through time to be here now with her lips on his that makes his heart soar with pure emotion surging through his body. He kisses her with the gentle touch of a lover but with the hunger of a thing that felt love once and gave love once and now gives that love again. He knows they will die here today and he will take that second death without complaint for the honour of knowing her, for the grace of her laugh, for the beauty of her heart that gave him sanctuary. For cleaning him. For feeding him. For the care and the love. For the gentle touch and the soft voice and the words she said that he never understood. He will follow and stand behind her when she spits in His eye then walk at her side into the fires of hell. He’d take every pain from her body if he could. He’d tell her to run while he held the line except there is nowhere left to run.
It lasts for eternity, for always, forever. It should never end because love is endless but all things must end and by force of the situation they part. The world starts turning and the second unfreezes to bring back the reality of the infected charging from both sides. She opens her eyes. Her pupils dilated, unfocussed. She breathes open mouthed, stunned to the core of what a real kiss feels like, of what a man feels like. A real man. A dangerous monster. Her dangerous monster.
They are coming. They’re closer now. He bends to lift the shotgun. She grips the machete. Ragged breathing fills the air. Feet pounding. They come into view. Their rage is staggering, projecting a hunger that is designed to give fear so the host bodies can be tracked and found. On they come so full of hatred that it warps their beings from once being human to something else. Something dark and corrupt. Something tainted and broken that doesn’t have the right to live in this world.
They go to meet them. Paco charging out with the shotgun held like a club. Heather snarling her own fury with the machete held out and ready. They go to make the lane run with blood to buy a few more seconds of life for the children that cower exhausted and beaten on the ground.
Paco hits first. His legs longer, his stride greater, his strength and speed more honed to run and fight. He slams into them, swinging the heavy shotgun round, sweeping the front ranks off their feet and back into those behind. He goes to work, fuelled with a kiss that gave energy that gives strength back to his body that’s mutated and made different. He slams the shotgun, knocking them back with dull thuds that hammer into skulls.
Heather hits a second after him. Pure unbridled glory surging through her veins. The machete rams into the neck of one that drops. She spins and takes another one down. Kicks and fells a third. She stamps and moves, ducks and slices with a blade made dull. She hammers and fights with a scream that fills the lane. They come harder, pushing into her. A hand lashes out snapping her head over. She head-butts out, driving it back enough to get her foot up into the belly that makes it bend double so the machete can come down on the skull. She lashes left and right, cutting flesh and felling them with a strength she never thought possible. Pain in her leg. She jumps back seeing a flash of a mouth snapping to bite her again. She hammers down with the hilt dropping the creature. Two minutes now. She knows it in the depths of her mind. She is bitten. The blood will be in her, changing her cells, making her one of them. Now she goes wild. Fighting with a frenzied rage unleashed. She drives fingertips into eyes and now without the worry of being infected she bites down into soft necks to tear arteries open with her teeth.
Paco snaps one then grabs another that is hefted and thrown into more. His right hand grips the hair of a woman that is ripped off her feet and sent flying back into the horde. Nothing will pass him. He refuses it. He denies it. He stamps and swings the shotgun to batter into faces that burst apart. He hits so hard the shotgun breaks in two. He drops it to revert to hands the way he did before. Punching and hitting. Swatting and snapping necks. He stamps and throws them back and the lane runs with blood.
How long now? She doesn’t know. She knows only that the pain will come so she gives what she can while she still has life. She drinks tainted blood from the arteries bitten out. Her chin runs thick and crimson. Her fingers gouge and tear flesh. She’s beaten back but the infected pay for every inch given with their own blood. She wills greater strength. She wills to be faster to hurt more to fight back. She gains it too. She gains that which she wishes and rallies with a surge of power that make her eyes wide and crazed. There is just this. Just to destroy them and give the children a chance to breathe another breath.
Subi covers the others. Her body pressing into them, her arms wide to hold them behind her. She will be the first to go when they break through and she will go screaming and hitting to protect her family. She sees Heather bleeding. She sees Heather spitting a chunk of flesh from her mouth and biting deep into the throat of another while gripping two with her hands to stop them getting past. She sees Heather taking punishment and giving her life. Her head twitches to see Paco and the greater number of bodies felled by him. He rages with something that isn’t human but isn’t them either. That gap closes. They get beaten back. The space around Subi grows smaller. She closes her eyes to summon the faces of her mother and father. She prays for them that their rebirth will be soon and perhaps one day they will meet again. She prays that Amna will come back as she is. Strong and defiant. She prays that Rajesh will laugh in his new life as much as did in this one. She prays they will find peace and the world will follow the path it has been set. All things have purpose. All things have reason. Life doesn’t end at death but keeps going for always. Truth is eternal. Love is forever. She gives love for her kin and holds them behind her with the truest courage of all.
Teeth on Heather’s arm. Teeth on her shoulder. She wrenches to break free and scythes the weapon round to fend them back. The blade strikes flesh but the edge is gone. It is but a club to beat them with. She screams out again and swings harder. She punches into a nose making it burst apart with a hot shower of blood. She stamps down breaking toes. She kicks shins and legs out.
Subi watches them. Her eyes opening from the prayer but seeing a thing that isn’t possible. Seeing two holding back many. Two people taking punishment that should be killing them but they don’t die. Instead they fight and keep going, getting faster and stronger, getting nastier and more vicious. She sees the infected fall to the ground to bleed as the night sky fades to a dawn. Paco kills two more. Heather bites one and grabs the hair of another trying to get past. Paco kills another two. Heather kicks into the knees of a female. More killed by Paco. More flung up to be smashed down into the ground. More necks snapped and suddenly there are gaps between the infected.
‘Up,’ Subi sees the gap and struggles to her feet. ‘Raj, get up…Tommy, we can go…get up. Amna, we can go…’
‘GO SUBI…’ Heather screams the words seeing the gaps in the ranks as the infected aim for Heather.
‘We have to go,’ Subi pulls her brother up, pulls Tommy to his feet. Grabs Christian and grunts with the effort of doing what Heather did to make them rise and keep going. The children are beat. There is nothing left within them. Oliver is unconscious. Rajesh can barely open his eyes. ‘Please…get up…Rajesh, you must get up…Tommy help me…’ she tries and fights to lift them with glances at the furious fighting taking place but metres away. She drags Rajesh to his feet and slaps his face, waking him startled and scared. She heaves Ollie up and squats down like Heather did to get the boy over her thin shoulders. Up she goes, grimacing at the effort needed. Amna slaps Christian then slaps Rajesh who blinks at being slapped again. Amna slaps Tommy then slaps Christian again.
‘SUBI GO…’ Heather roars, s
natching a glimpse of the children slowly getting up.
Amna slaps Subi then slaps Tommy then Ollie over Subi’s shoulder and carries on slapping until Subi tells her to stop slapping everyone. It does the trick though. Those small hands sting cheeks that make eyes come open.
Paco’s mind also opens. He turns round while swatting one down to see the children getting to their feet but the gaps are not enough. The children will be taken within a second of going in that direction. They can’t come his way either. The dawn is here. Light starts filling the lane giving details to what before were just shapes and silhouettes. The hedge is high and thick, the branches twist and snake round each other forming a tightly woven wall of thorns that will tear the children’s skin apart. Concepts and understanding. Visualisations of ideas from taking an abstract notion through to fulfilment of execution. He spins round and pulls hard with an explosive effort to grab a body that gets lifted and thrown into the hedge. Branches break, a dent is made but not enough. The body he threw was too light and small boned. It needs to be bigger. A woman lunging past him is kicked hard to be sent crashing into the same spot. More get sent that way. Thrown, kicked and hefted. A big man rushes in. Meaty legs, big arms and a solid gut. His neck is broken within a second then lifted spun and sent crashing into the hedge with a splinter of branches and a hole formed.
‘GO,’ his voice. Paco’s voice. American, broken but clear.
‘GO SUBI,’ Heather spots the break in the hedge. Her mouth spraying blood as she screams for them to get away. ‘PACO…COVER ME,’ she sprints hard to grab Amna who is thrown through the gap to land sprawling in the mud on the other side. Rajesh follows, hoisted and thrown. Paco drops back to stand behind Heather, buying seconds for the children to get chucked through. Ollie is ripped from Subi’s shoulders and launched. Tommy is pushed up and through. Christian is grabbed and sails clear to land on Rajesh still trying to roll away. Heather grabs Subi, hefts the girl and plants another kiss on the side of her head. ‘Run and don’t stop…’ she’s thrown hard with a scream of effort from Heather who is taken from her feet by an infected man launching into her. ‘RUN SUBI…’ She bites into the head coming down, tearing an ear off that’s spat aside. Her fingers scrabbling to pop the eyes as Paco’s right foot kicks him away. A flash of movement. Paco’s hand on her top lifting her up once again and sending her through the hedge to land sprawling in the mud. The big man turns with a split second pause to cover the gap with a smile of bloodied teeth and fists clenching at the end of arms that bulge with muscles.
‘RUN…RUN…’ Heather’s on her feet, grabbing the children who cry out from the shock and terror. She hefts Subi up and turns the girl to face across the field. ‘Straight across…go…don’t stop….find the fort…Rajesh, go now…Tommy, get your brother…Amna stop slapping…’
A crash behind her. Paco being rammed into the hedge so hard his head pokes through the gap. A rush of infected trying to crawl over him to get through to the children and Heather. She reacts quickly, striding to slam her foot into a face that breaks the nose. She boots again and again. Forcing them back as pain explodes in her toes from the impact.
Subi gets them going. Fear propels them. They start moving in a cluster across the field away from the hedge that shakes from the impact as the remaining infected aim for the hole to bust through. Paco fights on his back, the thorns and splintered wood raking his skin as much as the fingernails slicing deep. Heather kicks and kicks. Grunting wild and frenzied. Blood covers her body but the battle lust to kill and destroy is there. She spots a gap in the hedge above Paco and dives in to plug it with her body. Going head first to scrabble and writhe. Screaming out at the infected biting her arms. ‘PUSH ME…’ Paco’s hands find her body to send her shooting through with a mighty push that sends her flying into them.
Space is formed. Space enough for her to get on her feet and back into them. Space enough for Paco to come roaring up with his arms spread open to drive them back as two fend off many and hold the line to give the children a chance for life. Side by side they give everything they are. Side by side they make the lane run with blood. Side by side they stay as the infected keep coming.
Thirty Eight
Lessons learnt. Subi is intelligent and now the leader. The torch has been passed and she works hard to keep them together, to keep them quiet and to keep them moving. Across the field they go. Feet snagging on ploughed ground furrowed and pitted. Staggering in pain with exhaustion clear on their faces. The sounds of the fight follow them. She glances back seeing Heather launching herself back through the hedge. When she looks again the field is clear and empty, just the snatch of figures moving seen through the hole.
They reach the far side hedge and along to the break at the end that lets the tractor gain access. On again into a new field, following the hedgerow up to a gate. Shaky hands find the clasp and get it open. They get through. Gasping for air but willed on by a young girl who takes the mantle from Heather and carries the responsibility on her shoulders.
She spots the stable block and aims for it. She finds the hose and pulls it out. She finds the tap and turns it to spray the cooling waters the way Heather did. She soaks her group to cool their skin and wet their parched mouths. They drink from the end without knowing if the water is fit for consumption but glugging thirsty and deep. Bellies fill. Skin cools. Grime is sluiced away.
‘Look,’ Tommy nudges her side. Subi looks to the wheelbarrow propped against the side of the stable block and nods at Tommy.
Tommy rushes off, grabbing the barrow to wheel it back. His brother is laid in. Amna goes next. A handle each, Subi and Tommy push the barrow over the paddock to the gate and through onto another tarmacked country lane. The water has bought them time. Time enough to make distance. They push the barrow together. Not a word spoken unless it’s needed to be said. Rajesh falters and starts staggering. Subi guides him into the barrow, adding to the weight she and Tommy need to push but they do. They push and make distance. A simple device. A wheelbarrow fitted with one wheel but it makes the world of difference with the weight shared between two.
They reach the end of the lane and turn into a wider road. Minutes pass. Time goes by. The wheelbarrow is pushed. An engine behind them. They stop and turn to see a white van slowing down to stop a few metres back. A woman gets out the passenger side. Pulled back curly hair atop a friendly face that shows worry at the sight of the children. A man gets out the driver side. Older with greying temples and deep worry lines at the corners of his eyes. The rear sliding door runs back. Another woman comes out. Her eyes fixing on the children and the wheelbarrow.
‘You alone?’ The woman by the sliding door asks, her voice soft.
Subi stares back. Hardened now. She looks at Tommy who shows no expression. Christian at his side. The other three asleep in the barrow. She looks back past the van then off to the direction she came. Listening as though waiting to hear something, listening as though wanting to hear something.
The woman comes closer, slowly and carefully. She can see the exhaustion on the children. The blood stains on their clothes that have been soaked and now cling to their bodies. Bags under sunken eyes. Her heart breaks at the sight. She smiles the way a mother smiles. She slows to speak the way a mother speaks.
‘We’re going to the fort…it’s not far…we can,’ she pauses to look back at the driver who nods quickly. ‘We can take you…’
Subi stares and waits. She listens and waits but knows. There were too many of them. She blinks and looks at Tommy. ‘Please,’ Subi whispers.
‘Okay,’ the woman says, nodding while moving slowly towards them. ‘It’s okay…’ she comes close as though to drop and hug the children but holds back for fear of scaring them. ‘Phil, Sarah…give us a hand?’
‘Sure,’ the driver moves out, smiling sad and warm, his voice deep and re-assuring. Subi stays quiet. Tommy the same. The youngest are lifted sleeping to be carried into the van to be laid gently down. Subi, Tommy and Christian go with the
m. Wordless, expressionless. They stay close. Holding hands for the comfort of each other as the doors close and the van starts driving to the fort from a vow that was not broken.
Thirty Nine
The field is hard going. Ploughed and furrowed. Pitted and uneven. He stumbles but stays upright. He has to stop. Fatigue pulls him down into the earth to sleep the eternal sleep but he fights and blinks and walks on. Blood oozes from every inch of his body. His clothes hang in shreds. There is no moisture in his mouth. Even the true state of being cannot bring water where there is none to be brought.
He staggers on. Faltering, weak and broken. He reaches the hedge on the far side and down to the gap that lets the tractor gain access. He follows the hedgerow up to the gate that stands open. His eyes close. His mind becomes a black void. He starts to fall but snaps awake at the last second and plants a foot into the earth to stay upright. He sways drunken and ruined but forces himself to keep moving.
He spots the stable block and aims for it. It’s what Heather would have done. She’d know there would be water there. It takes an age to reach. Each step is paid for with real pain that he feels for the first time since he woke in the true state of being. Even his mutated cells cannot keep the agony away. He spots the hose stretched out still trickling water and knows they came through here. They had water. Water would have kept them going. He looks round to the open gate to the lane. They got out. Heather kept them alive. She did it. The vow was honoured.