Skin

by Liam Brown

  ‘You call this living? Because I don’t. And as far as sacrifices, I don’t remember ever being asked if we wanted to be saved. Because if anyone had taken the time to consult me, if they’d given me the choice between dying of some virus or living out the rest of my days like a battery hen, I’d have walked into the nearest crowd and taken a nice, deep breath.’

  ‘Why you spoilt little—’

  But before I could finish, I froze.

  Behind Amber, I’d spotted something. Something moving.

  Amber’s eyes widened as she turned to follow my gaze, her rage replaced with fear.

  She let out a whimper. ‘The dog…?’

  I didn’t move. Didn’t answer.

  I just kept watching.

  Not blinking. Not breathing.

  My eyes scanning the deserted street.

  Seconds passed. A minute. Then another.

  ‘Mum? Should we—’

  ‘Shhhh!’

  We kept watching.

  Silent.

  Still as statues.

  And then, just when I was ready to blame whatever I’d seen on my imagination, something stepped out from an alleyway.

  An animal.

  Not a dog, or a leopard, but a deer. A baby. A fawn.

  Somewhere nearby I heard a gasp escape from Amber’s mask as the animal trotted out into the middle of the road, teetering uncertainly on matchstick legs. It was close enough that I could make out the dappling of pale spots along its back, as if it had been lightly powdered with icing sugar. It couldn’t be more than a few days old.

  Suddenly it stopped dead, its comically large ears swivelling like satellite dishes, before it turned its head so that it was looking directly at us. I held my breath. The fawn gave a couple of slow, sleepy blinks. Once. Twice. Its eyes as black and glassy as marble. It twitched its nose, sniffing the air. And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone again, drifting across the road and disappearing into the undergrowth.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Amber cried. ‘Did you see that? That was the most amazing thing ever !’

  Even behind her mask, I was able to make out the look of wonder on her face, her eyes sparkling with excitement, before they suddenly widened with fear. ‘Will it be okay?’ she asked, turning back to look in the direction the fawn had disappeared. ‘I didn’t see its mother anywhere.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be just fine.’

  Amber shook her head, still fretting. ‘But what if it’s an orphan? What if it can’t find anything to eat?’

  ‘Really, sweetie. It’ll be okay. I promise. There’s probably a whole family of them nearby. Now, why don’t we get you back to your room before anyone notices you’re gone, eh?’

  Amber carried on looking at the deserted alley for a moment, as if hoping for another peek of animal. ‘Okay,’ she nodded when it didn’t appear. ‘Let’s go home.’

  ALL THE WAY back to the apartment, Amber talked breathlessly. Not just about the fawn, whose wellbeing she continued to fret about, but over every tiny creature we encountered. Every bird and butterfly and bee. Having spent more than a quarter of her life indoors, the natural world both fascinated and confused her. At one point, she actually got down on her hands and knees to watch as a procession of ants marched across the fractured paving slabs.

  ‘How do they know where they’re going? How do they find their way back home?’

  I shrugged. Shook my head. I had no answers for her. I was taken aback by this version of Amber, so different from the brooding teen I had become accustomed to staring at on my computer screen. Though she had the body of a woman, she was still disarmingly naïve, her development slowed by the years spent alone. She was twelve when we sealed ourselves away. In some ways she’s never moved on. She’s still that same frightened little girl frozen in time. A relic from an extinct world.

  Once the novelty of her new environment had eventually worn off, Amber began telling me about college. Of course, she doesn’t physically attend. All of her studies take place online in a virtual classroom, along with thousands of other students from around the country. Unlike Charlie, Amber is actually a pretty committed student, achieving consistently high grades and commendations from her teachers. At least she did until recently. Over the last year, she’s floundered, becoming increasingly despondent whenever either Colin or I have attempted to ask her how things are going or, God forbid, what she might like to do when she finishes studying. I suppose this is hardly a surprise. No matter how many times Colin repeats the line about ‘being armed with the skills you need to thrive when all this blows over’, we all know that in reality her ‘job’ will hardly differ in any meaningful way from either school or college. It will take place in her room. In front of her computer. Alone.

  I was therefore taken aback when Amber initiated a conversation about her favourite classes (history and English lit.) and her favourite tutor (Mr Hopkiss), mentioning the names of a dozen or more friends I’d never heard her talk about before. Hearing her chat away like a normal teenager was reassuring. I hadn’t been sure she even had a social life, and yet here she was telling me all about the intimate struggles of her cohort. To my amazement, Amber sounded not only popular, but wise. She seemed to be the person her friends turned to in moments of crisis. Trusting her with their most intimate secrets. Counting on her for guidance. As we approached our apartment, I found myself overwhelmed with pride. In five years, I can’t remember ever feeling so close to her.

  Perhaps that’s why I decided to try and prolong the moment.

  ‘Hey, do you want to do something a little crazy?’

  Amber turned to me, perplexed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on,’ I grinned, abruptly changing direction, so that I was walking away from the apartment. ‘I’ll show you.’

  ‘Wait. Mum. Stop. Won’t we get in trouble?’

  I laughed. ‘It’s fine. Trust me. I’ve done this loads of times.’

  With my camera safely shut off, I led Amber down a side street, past the crumbling remains of what used to be our local swimming pool, until we reached an innocuous-looking patch of bushes at the side of the road.

  ‘Do you recognise it?’ I asked.

  Amber shook her head, perplexed. ‘It’s just a bunch of… Wait. What is that? Is this… Oh my God. Is this the parrot park?’

  Just visible through the thicket was a green metal fence, though the paint had mostly flaked away. Beyond that, if you looked hard enough, it was possible to make out the rotting remains of a wooden climbing frame. Elsewhere, the top of a warped metal slide protruded from a tangle of brambles, along with a warped set of swings.

  ‘I can’t believe you found this place,’ Amber said, before she began pointing excitedly. ‘Look! There he is.’

  Over in the far corner, almost totally obscured now by foliage, was the eponymous ‘parrot’: a purple and green fibreglass bird fixed to a large spring rocker.

  ‘It’s been so long. I can’t believe you remember.’

  ‘Of course I remember. This place was the best.’

  Amber had always been an early riser and I have vivid memories of standing in the park with her at some obscene time on a Sunday morning while I pushed her on the swing or the parrot for what felt like hours. Even when she was older, too big really for the babyish rides, she still begged to come here, contorting her body in order to squeeze down the slide or into the basket of the swing. Strangely, Charlie had never taken to the park in the same way as his sister, preferring instead to play computer games inside than to join us on our chilly early morning expeditions.

  Amber stood silently for a few minutes, staring off wistfully at the ruined play park, until eventually we turned back towards the apartment. This time we walked in silence, Amber seeming lost in her memories. Desperate to rekindle the connection I’d felt with her earlier, I decided to bring up the subject of school again.

  ‘So what about this Jamal boy I’ve heard about? Is he in your class, too?’

  Th
e moment I spoke, I realised my mistake. Instantly, Amber’s shoulders hunched protectively around her ears.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Her voice was so low it was difficult to hear her through her mask.

  ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry. It’s just that I know how tricky things can be with boys. Especially at your age. Anyway, I just want you to know that if you need any advice, I’m right here for you.’

  Amber’s scowl only darkened, though. Even behind her mask, I could make out her lips puckering. Her nostrils flaring. And then she started shouting. ‘Jesus! I am sick of this family! Everyone is obsessed with everyone else’s business. There’s no privacy. Not online. Not out here. Nowhere. I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of it all.’

  ‘Amber, wait…’

  It was too late, though. Already, she was storming ahead of me towards the apartment. By the time I made it upstairs and through the front door, I saw she’d installed herself in the far corner of the quarantine tent, so that she was facing the wall. I tried a few more times to initiate conversation with her, but it was no good. That fleetingly happy, talkative Amber was once again a thing of the past.

  After that, we sat in silence, counting the minutes and hours until the red light eventually turned green, at which point Amber stormed from the tent without so much as a glance over her shoulder.

  A few seconds later I heard her bedroom door slam shut behind her, before the treadmill started up again.

  Thud.

  Thud.

  Thud.

  AND SO HERE I am again. Just you and me, Egg. It’s late now. Way past my bedtime. Yet I’m sitting at my desk wide awake, watching the footage from this morning’s patrol. I’ve been running it backwards and forwards for hours, but still I can’t decide exactly what it is that I’m looking at.

  Neither Charlie nor Amber turned on their webcams for dinner tonight, and for once Colin seemed in no mood to talk. We ate our dinner quickly and in near silence, logging off the second the last forkful slid down our throats. After that, I paced around my room restlessly. Not that there’s much room to pace. You can’t move more than six or seven strides in any direction without hitting a wall. It’s just about large enough to house my bed, my desk, a wardrobe-sized ensuite bathroom and a small kitchenette. It’s hard to believe that Charlie’s room is about half this size. This was always meant to be a temporary arrangement, and so giving the kids smaller rooms made sense at the time. Now it just feels like an extra kick in the teeth. One more thing for them to hate us for.

  Eventually I stopped pacing and sat down at my computer, forcing myself to tackle my neighbourhood watch report while it was still fresh in my mind. After a few minutes, however, I became distracted, unsure of how to cover the part where my teenage daughter illegally gatecrashed my patrol.

  While I dithered about what to do, I decided to review the footage from my chest camera. Once I’d hooked it up to my computer, I hit the fast-forward button, watching the butterflies flutter in double time. The bees buzzing like bullets. As it reached the part where I got to my old office building, though, I instinctively slowed the footage down to normal speed. Even seeing the building on the screen felt weird. I reached out to hit fast-forward again, but as I did, something made me stop.

  A trickle of movement.

  A shifting in the shadows.

  All at once, I remembered the fear I’d felt, just before Amber had interrupted me. The sense that I was being watched. I paused the video, straining to make out what it was that was lurking at the edge of the frame. I rewound the footage slightly. Zoomed in. Then again. Closer and closer, so that the image smeared. Bled.

  I hit play. Pause. Rewind.

  Again and again.

  Play. Pause. Rewind.

  And then suddenly I saw it.

  Or at least, I saw something .

  The image blown out and distorted, a blurry mass of brightly coloured pixels.

  It could be anything, really.

  And yet, if I squinted my eyes and tilted my head slightly, I could almost make it out. Though I knew what I was seeing was utterly impossible. A trick of the light, surely. An optical illusion.

  Even so, I’m still here, staring at the screen hours later. And no matter how many times I look at it, I can’t help but think it looks exactly like a person, crouched in the shadows.

  A person dressed in regular clothes.

  An orange T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

  No suit.

  No mask.

  Nothing.

  What’s more – and now I know I sound crazy – but if I really squint, it almost looks as if they’re staring right back at me.

  SEVEN

  IT WAS COLIN who decided we should try and make a break for it. His boss, Steve, had a small holiday cottage we could use. A bolthole by the sea that he kept stocked with supplies in case of spontaneous weekend getaways. We’d actually stayed there a few years earlier, when the kids were younger. It was beautiful, if a little isolated. I remember complaining at the time about there being nothing to do. The nearest shop was a good twenty-minute drive away. Now, though, the house sounded perfect.

  Especially as Steve and his family wouldn’t need it any more.

  We waited for night to fall before we left. This was a week or so after the fire at the Chens’ apartment, a few days after the electricity had gone out. It was a strange time. I remember going to great pains to act as if everything was normal in front of the children. To pretend that it was all some great big adventure. Wasn’t this fun, heating up tinned soup on the camping stove indoors? Wasn’t this neat, using torches and candles instead of lights? At least now that the TV and Internet were down, Charlie had stopped asking awkward questions for which we had no easy answers:

  What’s a global pandemic, Mummy?

  What’s a state of emergency?

  What’s martial law?

  Even so, it was impossible to shield them from the constant wail of sirens outside the window. Or the screaming and the sobbing through the walls whenever a neighbour heard bad news about friends or relatives. Or got sick themselves. Occasionally there were other sounds, too. Loud cracks that sounded suspiciously like gunshots. Breaking glass and burglar alarms. Distant explosions. Cries in the night.

  And then there was the fact that Colin had taken to sleeping with a cricket bat propped at the end of the bed.

  We packed what little we had into suitcases and then waited until the children were in bed before we loaded up the car, leaving it until after midnight before we lifted them from their beds. Charlie stayed asleep, still coiled in his blanket as I strapped him in. At twelve, Amber was too big for me to carry, and she stirred a little on Colin’s shoulder as he heaved her out into the cold hallway.

  ‘Where are we going, Mum?’

  ‘We’re going on a holiday.’

  Even in the dim light I could make out the sceptical look on her face.

  ‘We’re not coming back are we?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, sweetie. Of course we’re coming back.’

  Amber didn’t answer.

  IT WAS TOO dark to see much outside. Even so, we kept our faces pressed to the car windows, our breath clouding the glass as the road unravelled ahead of us. Though we didn’t say it aloud for fear of scaring the kids, we both knew what we were looking for. Looters. Carjackers. The diseased and the desperate.

  Then there were the soldiers to worry about.

  While officially there was still a curfew in place, there didn’t actually seem to be any military presence on the streets to enforce it. Still, before the Internet had gone down I’d read rumours about people being stopped and turned back. Or worse. Of soldiers hijacking their vehicles and stealing their supplies for themselves. It made sense. They were just people, after all. As scared and confused and as desperate as everyone else.

  While we scoured the darkness for danger, I heard a rustling from the back seat. I turned to find Charlie sitting up, though he was only half awake, hi
s eyes scrunched tight.

  ‘Will the bad guys kill us if they catch us?’

  Colin and I exchanged a glance, before I reached forward to tuck the blanket back over his shoulders.

  ‘Don’t be silly, darling. Why don’t you try and go back to sleep?’

  I leaned in and placed a kiss on his forehead.

  At the same time, I heard an unmistakable crunch as Colin activated the central locking.

  In the end, we managed to make it out of the city without being stopped, passing through the suburbs and eventually out into the countryside. While not as efficient as the newer generation of self-driving models, the car was surprisingly nimble, gliding around the potholed country roads as if on rails. It was quiet, too, the engine virtually silent, the only sound the log-fire crackle of the wheels on the loose gravel below. Colin and I hardly exchanged a word. It was difficult to know what to say. For weeks, we’d wittered endlessly to one another, putting a brave face on for the sake of the kids. For ourselves. Somehow, we managed to make the disease sound quaint. People were ‘feeling poorly’ or ‘under the weather’. They never died painfully. Mysteriously. Without hope.

  Now, though, all the words had dried up.

  Now there was nothing to do but drive and pray.

  IT WAS STARTING to get light by the time we reached the coast, a slither of slate just visible on the horizon. We passed through a small village I remembered from the last time we’d been there. A few houses and a church. A petrol station and a post office. A pub: The Swinging Piglet. I had fond memories of the place. We’d ended up eating there a few times, Colin and I sipping our drinks on the decking while the children scrambled over a small wooden play area around the back. Charlie shrieking on the swings. Amber hanging upside down from the monkey bars, a stuntwoman in training.

  As we approached the sign, however, I saw that the pub was boarded up, clumsy rectangles of chipboard screwed over the windows and doors. It wasn’t the only change since we’d last been there. The petrol station was derelict. The windows whitewashed. A chain around the doors. As we drew closer, I could see someone had vandalised the place. The glass sign smashed. The hose torn from the pump. The electric charging points bent and toppled.