“Part of me wants that,” said Nate, his arms wrapped around Ruby, “and part of me wants you.”
*****
Raining, it sheened on Nate’s face as he waited, still. It beaded on his beard and long hair, and flattened the T-shirt against his chest. The sun had not yet risen, but it was already lighting the atmosphere; cirrus clouds whispered across the sky, untainted by chemtrails and all the more beautiful for it.
His hands were lost in grass that stroked against his forearms. The wetness of it was cooling and refreshing. Every now and then he raised his head and opened his mouth to allow the rainwater on his tongue – the taste of nothing. It cooled his throat. He blinked raindrops from his eyes.
His knees had sunk into the mud as he had waited, his black jeans like a second skin. Partly he wished he had removed them, or at least he could remove them now. But he dared move.
Ruby was moving towards him in the distance, whistling and hollering; he could hear her ululations above the pitter-patter of the rain on bare twigs and branches.
Mucus dripped momentarily from his nostrils, salty on his tongue. He sniffed. Smelled the mud in his fingers and the earthworms deep beneath the earth; the decomposed leaves and the bodies of dead slugs and empty snail-houses. Like walking home from school and cutting through the field in November, after it had rained and feet before him had trampled the earth to mud that slid beneath his school shoes; that grassy, fusty, mildew smell of autumn dying, everywhere fallen leaves that are brown and shiny.
Bowing his head, the rain trickled down his spine.
Ruby ululated nearby and birds flapped their wings.
The den in front of Nate was well-hidden, but not well enough. The moment two eyes shone from its depths, he thrust in an arm and gripped the rabbit by the neck, squeezing it until its neck snapped.
As the day brightened still, they set lighter fluid onto a pile of wet branches and lit them. As the rabbit cooked on a spit, they piled more branches nearby to dry out in the heat. The rabbit fur lay discarded near a tree.
*****
Ochre fields rose and fell, the strokes of the brush always descending again with gravity. Sometimes the underlying brown earth merged into the carpets of beige, and sometimes shoots of new green rose where dormant seeds had sprouted.
Wood mice scampered down the troughs of some fields, or hid in brackish undergrowth. Along the peaks of these waves walked Nate and Ruby, the ground shifting and avalanching – just as it thought a human boot may never walk it again – and then it was left behind them, the few disturbed grubs carrying on as though it was just another day.
They hit a dense roadside hedge and turned against it, rising and falling, until they came to a farmer’s gate. Ruby asked if Nate had any idea anymore where they were, and he replied that he hadn’t really known since Worcester.
“How far to Wales?”
“I would’ve said only a two or three day walk, but yeah, we’re not following any roads.”
“Let’s not stop tonight. Let’s just keep walking.”
“Okay.”
The moon replaced the sun and the stars shone that night. The back of Ruby’s head gleamed; her lengthy black hair rich with oils, from her scalp and from the rain; from the dirt of the ground when they slept and Nate’s hands. From her waist dangled the limp bodies of four ducks – Agnes had had the right idea, they were suckers if they thought they were going to be fed.
As the moon began to wane towards the horizon, they gathered some wood and lit a fire. They pulled the feathers from one of the birds and skewered it, then roasted it over the open fire.
Secluded in the trough of a hill with a stream running through it, they were able to brush away old scrub and leaves to make a clearing between the trees in a small wooded area. It may have been slightly swampy here at times, and it was ripe, musty, but they became used to it. The firelight glowed on the bark of the spectating trees, and the white smoke drifted high; a chimney-stream of smoke from atop the boughs of the barren willow trees.
Back-to-back, they lay down with their bags beneath their heads, the unzipped sleeping bag lay over them. The sun began to turn the sky blue, and they drifted off to sleep.
Hours later and ravenous, Ruby clutched her stomach and rolled out from under the cover and then stared up at the glinting sun, veined by the branches of the trees around her. Momentarily blinding and then at once veiled as though beneath black lace, and she was a mourning widow, its glow warmed her face. She reached out to the fireside and their uncooked breakfast. On her side in the foetal position, her back to Nate, she lifted a wing to reveal the plucked tender skin of the duck-breast. Biting into it, she tasted copper and iron like 2-pence coins she had put in her mouth when a child; teeth clamped, she sucked until the breast was dry. Her mouth salivated; she tore a tentative piece of flesh and then chewed. Masticated, she swallowed, and she could feel the swell in her stomach subside – an overwhelming satiation.
*****
Inside the sleeping bag it was hot enough to attract surrounding small mammals, should there have been any loitering around the camp fire looking for residual warmth. In the previous thirty-six hours, they had begun the slow ascent that indicated they were rising into Wales, and now the air was colder than ever.
The small of Ruby’s back was slick with sweat as the fur of Nate’s stomach mingled and mashed, slid up and down. Her neck rested on his bicep as his forearm was curled around her throat, holding her tightly against his chest. Reaching over, he bit and nibbled and licked at her ear; in the recess behind her ear lobe his tongue tingled, feeling the surging blood just millimetres beneath the surface of the skin: her lobe between his teeth; it was human strength that withheld the clamp of his incisors.
She smelled like the earth; like the grass that had been mown and left to rot in a pile in the corner of the garden. And it was intoxicating. She tasted like chocolate and almonds, coffee and the back of the throat after the sea had been accidentally imbibed. Her neck became slick with his saliva as he kissed and thrust, licked and withdrew.
Breathing in, tongues of freezing air lapped into the sleeping bag, trailing a path between his chest and her back, causing him to shiver which vibrated inside Ruby, causing her to moan.
Nate’s left hand, oily over her breast, squeezed her nipples into she sighed loudly and gripped his buttocks even tighter, pushing him inside her with greater intensity. Nate squeezed her whole right breast and dug his nails into her skin until they had her blood on them. She sighed and moaned again.
He was a flame inside her; when he bit and chewed on her she arched her neck further, exposing more of her skin, and she wanted him to bite, to break skin. She could feel the tension in his jaw as he had her skin between his teeth; she could feel how easy it would be for him to relent; she could imagine the ecstasy that would follow. “Bite.” She took his hand and stroked it up her chest until his fingers were in her mouth; soil and ammonia as her tongue circled them and her lips puckered, sucking them: his fingernails like the edge of a tin can and metallic with her blood. “Bite,” she moaned again; her insides aching with the jack-hammering of his penis reaching up inside her, his pelvis bone striking the softness of her rump so that there would be bruising in the morning. She felt her skin open with the sharpness of his teeth clamping together – finally – into her neck, as she pincered his fingers between hers and he gripped her chin; his arm tightened around her neck, so that arm and hand together, she couldn’t move her head: could hardly breath as she felt his tongue inside her skin, underneath her; the fire inside her groin now spreading as he moaned loudly across her ear, and she opened her mouth to groan.
*****
“Maybe we should’ve picked up an atlas,” said Nate, “or a road map, or something,” but even as he was saying it he was dismissing it; the wind on his corrugated face rushed past and he knew if they’d gone by road they would never have climbed this high – a grey serpent slithered west below, dotted by flashes of colour that could have
been motorists stopping to admire the view.
They loped higher, towards untended sheep thick with wool. Their hair blew back from the wind, but stiffly – they had roughly cut through the coarse black hair with their knives, and now it exploded from their scalps. Nate’s face was bear-like and Ruby’s black with layers of dirt that the wind attempted to brush away.
They picked up the small sheep they had been heading towards and it baa-ed in its throat, which they sliced open; fresh blood guzzled over the swiftly shifting reeds of grass and drenched the dirt, pooling until it streamed downwards and a great brown-red streak wounded the hillside. The gash condensed into the freezing air.
Against a flint boulder they sheltered themselves from the elements. The open ribs of the sheep before them – a buffet of offal – they picked contentedly at liver, heart, lungs; the blood on their hands warm, the innards hot as it slid down their gullets.
Ruby looked to the hazy sky; “No rain.”
“Next town, next house. Fill the bottles.”
Full, they walked down the craggy hillside, through a thickly populated wood of scotch pines where the shade gave some respite to the wind, and out of the shadow’s edge as it bordered a road. They crouched on the embankment looking left and right before jumping down to the solid surface, landing with a thud.
They walked and Ruby noted they were heading more south than west. Bracken and tree boughs had overgrown here and there where passing lorries had failed to keep it at bay. They came to a small B-road that lead off towards flowing water and a farmhouse; at the intersection a sign signalled that they were only 8 miles from Hay-on-Wye, and something rang in Ruby’s brain. “Hold on,” she said as Nate changed direction for the house. She looked to the sky, abnormally white – where was the grey, today? – and took a deep breath. She looked at her hands; red and black. She wiped them on her jeans but they didn’t come clean. “Wait.”
Jess? Jen? Who had it been? “You simply must visit Hay if you get a chance – never seen so many books. You’ll love it!”
Nate grunted.
“Hay-on-Wye. You heard of it?”
“Maybe.”
“I want to go there.”
Nate shrugged. “Okay.”
*****
At the toll-bridge for Hay-on-Wye the barrier was down so they walked around it. Crossing the bridge they looked down at the slow-moving current of the River Wye. Along the embankments were dead bodies piled in the mud, left behind by the falling water levels or else too bulky and stuck to be swayed down the river. Further rainfalls may dislodge them over time; but before their one-by-one adventure to the sea they would rot into the air. It had been a while since they had smelled human decomposition, and it recalled images of the carpet of bodies in Worcester, the cracks of bones as they stampeded over them.
“Hey,” said Ruby, impressed by the 17th- and 18th-Century buildings appearing ahead of her. She wiped a hand across her nose. “Let’s wash a bit in the river.”
Together, they walked around the edge of the bridge and to the water’s edge. They cupped water and splashed it against their face, rubbing cheeks and foreheads until the brown water dripped darker. They cupped some more into their hair and then rubbed their hands together. Dried blood disappeared from forearms.
Back on the road, they headed towards the town and immediately found themselves surrounded by buildings; Nate looked past them to the corridor of sky above and asked “Something you want here?”
“My friend said I would like it. It only took the end of the world to get here.”
Bed-and-breakfasts and riverside retreats in cottage-style cobbled houses ran down one side of the street; cute façades in purple and cream for English tea and scones; while posters in unbroken windows advertised the forthcoming Hay-on-Wye literary festival. “Yes, she liked to read. She came to the festival,” said Ruby.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The usual vehicular graveyard was present; unusually they were all parked on the side of the road as though the shoppers would soon be back to drive off home. They walked down the centre, with Nate knocking each wing-mirror with his hand. They thunked back into place, or else snapped off. He looked at models of cars and found them unimpressive – was a Mercedes A-class good? A Clio? “We used to drive,” he said.
Ruby ignored him and turned onto a path for Lion Street. At the far end of the street she could see movement, hear banging – she put a hand on Nate’s chest and stood still. “Action,” he said.
“Fuck sake,” said Ruby. The movement was two barely clothed once-humans banging on a stout wooden door. A bookstore sign hung from above a canopy; ‘The Book Emporium’.
Nate took the lead as they walked up the path, one hand gripped around a knife, his heartbeat rising in his chest as his senses sharpened; he could smell their excrement now, see their legs soiled brown, hear their beseeching growls. “Ugh,” he grunted loudly. They turned and fell to all-fours, resting on the haunches of their back legs. At once, Nate started to run – they wouldn’t be getting momentum on him – and Ruby ran after him. They leaped forward, fully utilising the strength in their shoulders and hamstrings, and began to charge at Nate. He threw out the fist of his armed hand which connected with the cheekbone of the first one. Simultaneously, he used his nails and ripped into its neck, tearing away flesh. Plunging the knife into its chest and ducking, he catapulted it towards Ruby’s running feet. “Oh, thanks,” she said as she used her own knife to finish it off. The second one was now on top of the prone Nate, but he kicked and punched until he was able to roll over and force his own weight on it, squeezing its neck with one hand as it clawed Nate’s arms, drawing blood. With the other, he pushed his thumb into its eye socket until the eye gave with a soft pop, and he was in upto his knuckle. The thing’s mouth opened and revealed that black, stinking tongue, and then it was dead for good.
Ruby stood over her defeated corpse watching Nate, her hand on her belly. He was taking long, deep breaths and the knuckles of his left hand were white as he gripped, still, to its neck. He was twisting his nails in. “Hey,” said Ruby. “It’s dead.” She bent down next to him and stroked his hair. “It’s dead.”
Nate began to nod. “It’s dead.”
“Come on,” said Ruby, pulling him up. “Let’s see what the fuss was all about.”
The windows to the emporium were smashed but protected by a gridiron which barely shifted when Ruby pulled on it. Within, battered by wind and rain, sodden hard- and paperback books spewed green mould and smelled damp. Orange tattered covers for Penguin classics like Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and watercolour covers for older classics like Wuthering Heights, were plastered through with bleeding-ink words. Bleeding-ink worlds. They had existed vibrantly before, always alive in the minds of those who had read them, and while they still existed within the pages of books, within the thousands of bookstores across the country, and more across the globe; they needed more than just a dead or long-dead author – they needed readers. “I want a book,” said Ruby, knocking on the door.
Nothing.
“Hey,” she shouted, knocking louder. “Hey in there! Those things are dead! You can come out!”
“What are you doing?” asked Nate, standing behind her.
“Hello!” She moved to the windows and shouted through the grid of iron. “Hello! We killed them! It’s safe!”
“Hello?” said a quiet voice. Then louder, and deeper. “Hi!”
They heard movement above them. A head popped out of a window.
“Hi,” said Ruby. “Let us in?”
Part Four: Descent
The deadbolt on the door shifted across with a loud thud – and then another – and another – and finally the door swung inwards on heavy hinges.
“I’m Cai,” said the young man. His eyes rose when he saw them; two dressed in black but not dressed for warmth, his skin black and hiding some of the dirt and grime that was probably there, her white skin was pale wh
ere it showed; they had washed but not thoroughly. Their hair reminded him of his uncle Bryn back when he was a boy; he had cut it himself, up at the farm, and let the elements have their way with it.
The guy had blood on his hands and a knife, but then they had just killed two of the zombie fuckers.
“We’re Ruby and Nate,” said Ruby, smiling. “Were you in trouble?”
“They would’ve tired eventually. They go and come back every couple of days or so.” Cai poked his head out the door and looked both ways down the street. The two dead corpses lay in a bloody mess. Jesus.
This close to them, they were every unwashed tramp he’d ever walked past in Cardiff, and worse. He pulled back, trying not to put his hand to his nose. “Thanks, though.” He smiled. “Mighty noisy they were.”
“No trouble.”
Cai stood for a beat, holding his breath.
Ruby turned to Nate and nudged him; “Put that away,” she said. Smiling, she asked Cai if they could come in.
“Are you after anything?”
“I wanted a book.”
Cai laughed out loud, “Is that some kind of joke, dear?” His Welsh accent reflected through. “You know where you are? Capital fucking city of books.”
Ruby laughed along with him, which just unnerved him more, especially since Nate was just standing there staring at him. “Well, maybe we want water and food too, you know, but I’d love to look at the books you got. My friend always said they’d wind up in a library if there was ever an apocalypse, and I guess I kinda get that. Next best thing, eh?”
“You make me nervous,” Cai said. “Can’t trust people, you know, not anymore.”
Nate put an arm on Ruby’s shoulder; “If we wanted to kill you, we would’ve already.”
“Yeah, I gotta say, you say that but that’s what some horror-fucking dick would say just before he cuts you up into little pieces.”
The Risen (Book 1): The Risen, Part 1 Page 15