“So, what do we do?” Karen folded a leg beneath her. “Move on? Head further south? What’s the plan?”
Kurt cupped the dog’s head. He responded by instantly licking the gaps between his fingers and shifting about excitedly.
Beth answered. “Well, as I’ve already said to Karen, you’re all more than welcome to stay here until this all blows over and we see what’s going on. There’s plenty of space for everyone – as you’ve seen – and, frankly, we love the company.” She looked at Karen, a kind of in-joke between them. “And, touch wood,” she leaned forward and placed a hand on the coffee table, “we ain’t seen nothing of those things you’ve been speaking about around here. Heard some bins knocked over, and maybe what sounded like a couple of animal cries, but not seen anything. Ain’t that right, Davie?”
David nodded.
“Well, that is very kind of you.” Karen addressed Steve and Kurt, “Hear that? The four of us can…” she clapped a hand to her mouth, took a breath, her eyes shimmering, “the three of us can stay here until we figure out what’s next.”
Beth moved closer to her sister and placed an arm across her shoulder.
They all took that as their cue to drink. David helped himself to another tipple from his crystal bottle, then stood up. He had a strong posture, reminding Kurt of the gentlemen he had read about that lounge in velvet dressing gowns, and toast their slippered feet by the log fire. The sophisticated, aristocratic type that spoke of Orwell novels and Shakespeare. When he spoke his voice was deep, authoritative. He could easily have been some kind of monarch. Maybe a third cousin, twice removed from England’s Queen. He raised his glass. “Let us make our glasses kiss; let us quench the sorrow-cinders. For time is borrowed currency; and love shall never be hindered.“
“Here here,” Sabrina responded with a bemused look. Steve didn’t bother moving but drank his coffee as if it were a glass of wine. Beth grasped Karen’s hand affectionately. Kurt raised his glass high, thinking of his sister.
“We stick together,” David continued. “Our house is your house. Anything you need, just ask. We’ll work together, keep an eye on the news, and see if we can’t come out on top of all this.”
They refilled their cups and sat awhile in relative quiet. Beth and Karen whispered to each other while David busied himself with a log fire and attempted to chat to a very quiet Steve. Sabrina closed her eyes and appeared as though she was taking a nap. David had given her a glass of the brown stuff which she had drunk eagerly, and now her breathing was heavy.
A short while later, and after some more discussion – mostly centred around Beth and David’s memories of James and Karen’s visits – people emptied their cups and filed from the room. Karen clung to Beth and helped in the kitchen, Steve slunk up to his room, heavy feet on the staircase. Sabrina disappeared out the front onto the porch pulling a carton of cigarettes from an inner jacket pocket, leaving Kurt alone with David and the dog.
“His name’s Almas,” David said after watching Kurt intently from his chair. “He’s a friendly boy.”
“He’s lovely,” Kurt replied. Almas flipped over onto his back and Kurt rubbed his belly furiously. “Aw, he likes this.”
David chuckled. “If you’re not careful you’ll make him too excited. Almas isn’t averse to humping humans.”
Kurt ripped his hand away, David belly laughed, a lively sound that lifted Kurt’s spirits. When was the last time Kurt had heard laughter? Or laughed himself? David swirled his drink with one hand. Almas stood up, bent his front legs and began growling, confused by the sudden change of mood. Kurt began laughing too.
From the kitchen, they heard Beth call, “I hope you two aren’t winding that dog up. I’ve told you about that, David.”
David smiled at Kurt, placing one finger over his lips.
Kurt decided that he liked David. He was perhaps a bit intimidating from a first impression, but he was all grey tufts of cotton and whisky-breath. Or brandy. Or maybe it was rum? His eyes sparkled with unending wisdom, and a keen curiosity that, at times, made Kurt feel a little exposed, but also somehow safe. After Almas had calmed down, and David had poured himself his third drink, Kurt found himself enjoying the old man’s company. Wondering if the feeling he felt was similar to what people experienced when they spoke of their grandparents, or kindly neighbours. Kurt struggled to think of the last time he ever really felt at ease around grown-ups. At least not since his parents had passed. He loved Linda and, to a lesser extent now, Steve. But there was always something about the relationship between adopted parents and son that held him back from trusting them fully. There was only one person in life that Kurt could be himself around, and could trust with absolutely anything. And she was trapped in a place in which Kurt had very little control.
With every mouthful of his drink, it seemed that David took a stronger interest in Kurt. They spoke of silly things, David asking about Kurt’s interests, Almas hopping between the two excitedly wagging his tail. Kurt told David of his reading. David offered some suggestions of classic literature that Kurt would be silly to miss out on. “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? If you’re a fan of mysteries, you need to be reading ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’. None of that Harry Potter shit.”
An hour ticked by, and conversation inevitably turned to family matters. Kurt felt himself tighten when David asked, “So, have you got any family nearby?” An innocent enough question, but enough to cause Kurt to quieten. “I didn’t mean to pry,” David said, shifting from the chair to the floor and placing a hand on Kurt’s shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me.”
But Kurt found that he wanted to. Somehow, sitting in the warm of the living room with David beside him, he felt that he should. That he could tell, and he’d be okay. He could trust David. Nice, wobbly-eyed David with his musty breath and trimmed beard.
And besides, if Amy was still in Ohio, didn’t it make sense that at least one of the house-owners should know something of her? Maybe David would drive Kurt out there? Well, maybe after a long sleep and some ibuprofen.
“I have a sister,” Kurt began before he could stop himself. The words came tumbling out, one after the other, as though his mouth were a cupboard filled with Lego and the door had been opened. He spoke quietly, pausing whenever Karen or Beth poked their head in to see if Kurt needed anything.
David sat and listened and nodded at all the right moments. Kurt lied his way through the blanks, not truly able to describe how he knew where Amy was, or how he knew she was even alive. He told David that he and Amy had been inseparable until the potential parents came for Amy and tore them apart. He told David of their journey to Durham, skipping the parts where he would have had to explain about the Deadspace, replacing these snippets with as simple an explanation as text messages. David asked some questions here and there, but mostly Kurt spoke until he felt his burden lighten. Words that his father had told him time and time again speaking the backing track to his rant, ‘A problem shared is a problem halved.’
Boy, were you right, Papa.
Kurt eventually ran out of puff. David crossed the room, poured himself another glass and returned to sit beside Kurt with a grunt and a bemused look.
“So where is she now?”
“Last she told me she was in Fort Wayne, Ohio.”
“Lovely place, that. That’s actually where I took Beth on our first weekend away. There’s a lovely area there, Mill Mountain Park. Stand atop the rocks and you can look out at the entire city. Great place for a bit of late night nooky. Do you know where in Fort Wayne she is?”
Kurt shook his head. He saw the door from the Deadspace impossibly stood in the middle of the forest. The light flickering behind the glass panel. Amy’s voice. He allowed his head to fill in the gaps, opening the door to reveal a concrete stairwell that led to a dark hollow. A room empty of everything, except one solitary figure huddled in the corner, sobbing into her hands. Calling out for her brother to find her, to save her from whatever hell was keeping her there.
“Why don’t you text her and find out?” David asked as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He idly stroked Almas’ belly causing him to hop up and thrust his body at David’s leg. “Down!” he shouted, kicking the dog several feet across the room.
“I lost my phone by the ferry.”
“Do you know her number?”
Kurt did. He had memorised Amy’s number years ago when they separated, just in case he’d maybe find himself without a phone and would need to get in touch.
But if he told David he knew, then David would make him call her. Then he’d have to add another lie on top of the rest of the mistruths, and that was something that he didn’t want to do. He knew he needed David. David could be the one to take him there, to help him find his sister. That much was clear. Kurt’s mission and path were laid out before him. Like Hickory Dalton from his book, he was going to go and save the princess. Maybe a little assistance wouldn’t go amiss?
As Kurt mulled over his answer, there came the sounds of someone throwing up nearby. David turned his head to the door, “Hold that thought,” and left.
Kurt waited a moment. Picked himself off the floor, and let curiosity be his guide as he followed quietly after.
26
Lucas’ stomach rumbled at some point along Route 29. His eyes were heavy, and he found the winding stretch of tarmac blur in front of him. A couple times he found himself jolting awake as Maddie commented on something that she could see out the window. Donny roared along as though the carriageway was an all-you-can-eat buffet and Donny was fucking hungry.
The world was quiet. That was the thing that surprised Lucas the most. Occasionally they would pass a pile up of cars and would have to drive onto the verge to weave past the crash. But mostly the roads were clear. The only things moving or standing were trees and the occasional pieces of litter that got caught in the wind and rolled along the road like tumbleweeds in old western movies.
“Hey, look. People.”
Lucas jolted once more at the sound of Maddie’s voice. He looked out the passenger window and saw a group of five men, some with backpacks, all with bats and items to swing, wandering along the side of the road. Their clothes were bloody. Their expressions set in an angry frown. Without words, they looked at the car as it rumbled along, and stared at them until they disappeared from view.
“Didn’t fancy stopping?” Maddie quipped.
“If we had, I know which one of us would still be alive right now. And I doubt you’d want to live through what they would plan for you.”
After they had driven a little farther, Lucas spied a gas station. He turned without indicating, slowed, and cautiously approached. The lot was empty of people as far as he could see, but a scattershot of cars were still parked up at the pumps, a few still with hoses hanging limp in the petrol tank.
“One lap for safety,” Lucas mumbled, curving a slow loop around the lot, scanning for any sign of possible movement. There was none. He drove past the statues of forgotten cars and parked as close to the doors as possible. He warily opened the door, gun clasped in both hands – just in case. Across from him, he heard Maddie shift.
“Stay here.”
“You fucking crazy? Safety in numbers, Dixon.”
They looked at each other and smiled.
They took one more look around the station, scanning the insides of cars, and the far reaches of where the road met the horizon for signs of life. A few cars had doors that weren’t quite closed. A couple had doors wide open. Lucas took a few careful steps towards a large black Hummer, windows tinted, a pink Playboy bunny bumper sticker. He couldn’t resist the urge to take a peep.
“What’re you doing?” Maddie hissed.
Lucas pulled the handle and a dark mass jumped out at him. It was heavy and as it fell on Lucas he tumbled to the floor. The wind was knocked from his lungs. He heard Maddie rush over.
“Eurgh!” His nostrils filled with the scent of decay. In a blind panic, Lucas kicked and pushed the thing off of him, finding his way to his feet. He pointed the gun at the rotting corpse as it rolled onto its stomach, mouth agape, deep grooves bitten into its neck and waist. It was then that Lucas saw the sticky trail of blood dried just below the car door.
Idiot. All the signs were there.
“Are you okay?” Maddie asked, helping Lucas off the floor.
“They’re friendly in this neighbourhood, ain’t they? Well… maybe not the ones that attacked him.”
“How do you know it’s a ‘him’?” Maddie smirked.
Lucas’ stomach rumbled loud enough that they could both hear. He patted it and looked at the dark fridges just inside the gas station doors. “Shall we?”
Maddie nodded. Lucas turned and gave the corpse an irritated kick in the ribs. Its jaw clacked loudly as its head lolled on the concrete. He scanned the area around him, looking for any well-fed diners that might’ve snacked on this poor guy.
They were nowhere to be seen.
The door of the gas station was once an automatic, meaning that to manually open, the button had to be triggered from the inside of the store. Lucas scratched his head, weighing up the possible risks of smashing the doors. Too much noise will draw attention, silly. Even if danger was out of sight for now. Still, Lucas took a step back, lowered his shoulder and told Maddie to ‘stand back’.
He was about to charge when the doors opened a fraction, as though the lock mechanism had been released. He looked to his left where Maddie was standing at the corner of the store, hand placed on a button she had found behind a stack of charcoal bags. “Read the note on the window,” she said.
Sure enough, on the window was a small square of white paper. The words ‘Emergency release – on the wall, ten paces left’.
Lucas felt himself redden, silently thankful at the idea of not having to shoulder through fragments of glass.
Maddie rejoined him and Lucas pried his fingers into the centre of the panels and pulled it open. The doors screeched as they rolled on their tracks, the mechanisms designed for electricity not taking too kindly to their manual override.
Lucas reaffirmed the grip on his gun and stalked the aisles, amazed at how, no matter how far he drove, the spread of the toxin seemed to have beaten him. He spotted its yellow residue on the lining of the windows and felt his stomach turn. It was both incredible and terrifying to see that even a small amount of the chemical was enough to affect the systems of civilians. For the wind would need some heavy gusto to deal a substantial amount of the droplets as far west as he had travelled. Unless…
He looked out the window and saw the man who had fallen out of the car. Deep bite marks across his body. If the bites hadn’t severed vital arteries, could there be a possibility that…
“Hey look,” Maddie said, holding up a tin of Spam. “Survivalist food 101. Let’s take a dozen of these for the road.”
Lucas chuckled. “You ever tasted that shit?”
“Never. I like my meat freshly murdered.”
“Ah, a real woman.”
“Straight out the barn.”
Lucas reached across the counter, plucked a carrier bag, and began stocking it with food. Maddie followed suit, though seemed a lot pickier over her choices. Where Lucas stocked sandwiches, chocolate bars, questionable fruit, Maddie plucked a packet of Milk Duds, Twizzlers, and a packet of Hershey’s. Variety was clearly not the spice of Maddie’s apocalypse.
When Lucas’ bag was sufficiently straining, he walked across to the counter, reached through the gap in the shatterproof protective glass and grabbed a scanner. “Beep,” he said, pretending to scan the packaging on his tuna sandwich. Maddie smirked. He proceeded to scan a few more items with playful beeps.
“That’ll be zero dollars and three cents,” Maddie said, feigning her best checkout girl voice.
Lucas fished in his pocket for some change. “I’m afraid all I have is a dime.”
“It’s okay, keep the change.”
Lucas flicked the dime
off his thumb and watched it spin in the air. He called, “Heads!” The coin landed on the padded foam of the pedestal seat.
Tails.
“Just my luck,” he laughed.
As he picked up his bag and turned to leave they heard the sound of voices. Somewhere nearby, but out of sight. Lucas turned to Maddie and saw all laughter had dropped from her face. She clutched the bag tight to her chest and looked at Lucas, the same silent thought passing between them: We’ve stayed too long.
Lucas grabbed Maddie’s hand and led her towards the door until a man appeared from just around the corner of the gas station with a grim expression on his face. Lucas ducked, dragging Maddie with him.
“What do we do?” Maddie whispered.
At the back of the store was a green door with a sign saying ‘Staff Only’. Lucas nodded towards it and they both shuffled backwards. The voices grew louder. By the sound of it, it could’ve been anywhere between three to six people.
Before they could even begin to make out what it was they were saying, Lucas and Maddie closed the door behind them, and immersed themselves in darkness.
27
They heard footsteps on the tiled floor of the gas station. All around them was darkness, the lights in the in-between room probably not touched since the attendant had disappeared from their post and left the little note on the front door. The tiniest crack of light poured in from beneath the ‘Staff Only’ door, looking like a light-up piece of string stretched between the sides of the doorframe. Lucas felt Maddie beside him, her breathing shallow. A second later her hand locked into his.
The voices were gruff, but the door was thick. Occasionally they caught snippets of what they thought might be words, but nothing discernible. Lucas shut his eyes and tried to focus on the noises, doing his best to gauge an accurate headcount.
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