“Fuck it,” he snapped and said to himself, “I’m going to do this, even if it kills me.”
Q staggered downstairs, taking the candle with him, and managed to open the back door and go outside. There was very little wind, so the flame from the candle managed to stay alive. He headed towards the shed and smiled that it didn’t seem to be locked. He looked around and tried to peer over the other back gardens. There was nothing but darkness. The place was lifeless, and Q guessed that the woman was probably the only survivor left in the street before she was bitten.
He reached out for the handle of the shed and opened it with no hesitation. A snarling ghoul fell out of the shed and on top of Q, making the man yell out in surprise and shock. The two rolled around on the floor, and Q struggled to take his knife out of his pocket. The male Canavar grabbed Q around the face, but Q punched the thing twice on its nose. Once it let go, he pulled out the knife and stuck it into the thing’s left eye socket. He gave the knife a twist, screwing his face as the squelching noise was made, and then pulled the knife out, wiping the blade on the tattered clothes of the dead.
Panting hard, Q stood up straight on his wobbly legs and wondered if the male ghoul was a relation of the deceased woman. What was he doing in the shed in the first place? He grabbed the ghoul by the legs and dragged it into the corner of the garden.
Q then walked over and picked the candle up and waved it in the shed, clocking garden utensils in the corner and a couple of bikes on the right hand side. He took a shovel with his free hand and picked a spot to start digging.
He winced as his ribs throbbed, but was determined to do this. He felt responsible for the woman and boy, and thought that they at least deserved a proper burial.
Twenty-seven minutes of digging at the back of the garden had created a sufficient hole, albeit shallow, and now he needed to transport the bodies from the first floor of the house, to their new resting place. And after that, Q was certain that he would probably sleep for a week. He was on his feet, and was struggling to keep his eyes open, but was too stubborn to leave mother and son and move them in the morning.
Leaving the shovel and the candle by the shallow grave, John McHugh stumbled through the long grass of the garden and headed for the back door. He clattered into some furniture in the dark living room, but still managed to get to the bedroom without receiving any further injuries.
Without hesitating, the exhausted man lifted the woman first and struggled to exit the bedroom. He hated doing this, but he had to put her on the landing’s carpet and slowly dragged her down the stairs. He lifted her up once more when he was at the bottom, and carried her all the way to her new home. Once he placed her in, he fell to his knees, exhausted. That was the hardest one. Now, the boy.
Q cradled the boy from the moment he picked him up, to the moment he stepped outside. He slowly went to his knees and placed the poor little fellow on top of his mother.
With tears in his eyes, Q grabbed the garden utensil and shovelled the dirt on top of the two dead in the dark, now that the candle had died. He briefly thought about placing the male body with them as well, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he was a part of the family or was just a random Canavar that had got itself stuck in the shed or if somebody had put him there, out of the way. And he certainly didn’t have the strength to remove her dead husband in the other room that Q had taken care of.
He mumbled The Lord’s Prayer as he was hunched over the grave. It seemed right. He wasn’t a believer, but simply walking away from the cold grave without releasing any words didn’t seem acceptable. After saying Amen, the man was ready to go back inside.
As worn out as he ever had been in his life, John McHugh left the shovel and the candle where they were, and made the arduous walk back to the house. He shut the back door behind him, not barricading it, and collapsed on the couch.
He was asleep in seconds.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Okay ... so ... my family,” Dicko tried to begin, but he was clearly struggling.
Nobody said anything.
Everyone was staring at Dicko, waiting for information from the man that they had all known a month, more or less. There had been a shroud of mystery over this man who was in his early forties, and everyone, especially Simon, wanted to know more about him.
“Um…” Dicko sighed and he seemed to have sobered up in seconds.
There was seriousness on his face that they all noticed, and Simon, despite aching to know more about his friend, was in two minds whether to tell Dicko that it didn’t matter. He wanted to know more about Dicko, but he didn’t want to see the man upset.
“Just tell us about the beginning,” Donald said with a straight face, and then hiccupped. “It doesn’t have to go on for hours. Just a short summary.”
Simon opened his mouth to say something, but Yoler had beaten him to it. “You don’t have to say anything, Dicky Boy,” she said. “Let’s call it a night.”
“Hear, hear,” Helen yawned.
“No,” Dicko said. “It’s only fair I should say something. You guys are not strangers anymore, and some of you have told me about your past lives, even before this daft game.”
“In your own time,” said Simon gently.
Dicko took in a few deep breaths, trying to compose himself, and then began to speak. “My wife and daughter went out to the shops when the announcement was made on the ninth day of June. I stayed in the house, waiting for them to come back. I waited for weeks.” Dicko cleared his throat and added, “But they never came back.”
“Did you think about leaving at all?” Yoler asked him. “Did you never try and look for them?”
“It was difficult.” Dicko gave Yoler a hard stare and reached for his bottle. He unscrewed the cap and took two large gulps. The warm sensation inside of him felt good, and he added, “I had no car. I had a son as well. He was with me while my wife and daughter were out. I couldn’t just leave. Plus, I was so convinced that they’d be back, but we had to leave in the end.”
“But you left in the end? Why?” Simon asked.
“Look, I’m not going to go into explicit detail about my family and what happened to me over the last twelve months.”
“We understand,” Helen said with a sympathetic tone in her words. “It’s your personal life.”
“No, it’s nothing to do with that,” Dicko said, and released a light chuckle, waggling his head. “It’s because if I did, we’d be here all fucking night, and none of us, except Helen, are sober enough to listen to it anyway.”
Dicko took one more gulp of the bourbon and continued, “So … me and my son left our house. We met up with some guy and his partner, Bentley and Laura, and eventually ended up in a camp or two after that.”
“Did you ever find out what happened to your wife and daughter?” Helen queried Dicko.
“They’re both dead,” he said quite coldly, almost robotic like. “They had reanimated and a friend of mine put them out of their misery. It wasn’t a nice experience.”
The room fell silent and Simon, Helen and Yoler began to stare at one another. Donald wasn’t listening. He seemed too drunk to care and his head kept on dropping, indicating that he was ready for bed.
Yoler was the first to speak up after the brief silence, and asked Dicko what everyone else was thinking. “And what happened to your son?”
Dicko licked his bottom lip and his head dropped an inch. He opened his mouth, about to explain, but he struggled for words. He gulped, took in a deep breath and said, “He was killed in this camp we were at. Me, and a girl called Karen, came across his little body. It was the most distressing thing I’ve ever seen. I’ll never get over it. Never.”
The room fell silent again.
Dicko cleared his throat. “Anyway, this camp was attacked and we had to move to another place. After a couple of weeks, I left the people behind because I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.”
“You didn’t have a choice?” Yoler look baffled. “Wh
y? Were you forced out?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Dicko smiled, not giving too much away. “I walked for miles, days and weeks went by. A few months later and I met up with some guys. It was these guys that called me Dicko. It just kind of stuck.”
“What happened to them?”
“In short, we were attacked and went our separate ways. Anyway, I spent a few more months on my own, meeting people here and there, and then I bumped into Simon here.”
“I suppose meeting up with people and then having to leave doesn’t give you much confidence for this place,” Simon said.
“I think it’s the pattern that most of today’s survivors have gone through,” Dicko said, elevating his shoulders. “You find a place, you get attacked, and then you have to leave. I’m still alive, so I can’t really complain too much.”
Dicko had stopped speaking and it looked like everybody was ready for their beds. Helen couldn’t stop yawning, and she was the only sober one out of the five of them. But Simon wasn’t finished yet. There was something else he needed to know.
“So ... Dicko,” Simon snickered. “That just leaves the other question.”
“And what’s that?” Dicko asked.
“Can’t we just go to bed now?” Helen moaned. “David is probably wondering where I am.”
Ignoring Helen’s moaning, Simon asked, “What’s your real name?”
“Doesn’t matter what his real name is, Simes,” Yoler chipped in. “He’ll always be Dicky Boy to me. I don’t give a piss about his real name.”
“And he’ll always be Dicko to me.” Helen smiled and looked over to Donald, who was now nodding off.
“Tell us anyway,” Simon said with a smirk. He reached for his bottle for a swig of his bourbon.
“Does it really matter, Simon?” Dicko smiled at Simon and added, “What’s wrong with Dicko?”
“Nothing’s wrong with Dicko, but out of interest, I’d like to know,” Simon said with a smirk. “Even Imelda used to call you Mr. Dicko.”
Dicko smiled when he was reminded of this. Imelda, he thought. Poor little soul. Poor little thing.
“Okay,” Dicko sighed and said, looking at Simon, “If you really want to know, that’s fine, but I’d still prefer you to call me Dicko after I’ve told you.”
“Why?” asked Simon.
“I would just prefer it. Deal?”
“Deal.” Simon smiled.
Dicko cleared his throat and could feel his eyes dampening. He said, “It’s Paul.”
“Paul?” Yoler scoffed. She then screwed her face and thought for a few seconds. “So why did those guys start calling you Dicko?”
“Because my surname is Dickson.” Dicko looked at Yoler and gave her a thin smile. “My full name is Paul Dickson.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Next day
Her eyes had been opened for just a couple of seconds, and she had already made a decision that her body needed food. Lisa Newton sat up and the thoughts of her youngest daughter began to pollute her mind, making her tearful.
She thought about those four men. Those bastards. She’d never forget their faces. Especially the three cunts that raped her.
She got to her feet, put her footwear on, and then headed for the downstairs with the shotgun in her hand. Her mouth was dry and her stomach growled impatiently, waiting for something to be dropped into it.
She needed to find a stream somewhere, in the nearby woods, and whatever it had to offer as food. She had been ‘playing’ with the shotgun the evening before and had finally managed to open it.
Once she did, she could see that two cartridges were in there and then she snapped it shut. It was a simple matter of squeezing the trigger, if ever she needed to. She hoped that time would never come.
She exited the house, leaving the snib off the door so she could get back in. She walked down the street with confident strides, thanks to the gun that she was holding and the knife in her pocket.
The woods weren’t far away and minutes of walking later, she went through a cluster of trees and smiled when she could hear a stream straightaway. Her feet followed the sound of running water and it wasn’t long before she fell to her knees and drank some of the icy liquid. She told herself to calm down and knew the water was plagued with parasites, but at least she knew there was water. Now, she could go back to the house, make up a jar, and set it up so that she could filter the water. She had one last gulp and wondered if she should try and go back and get the jars and empty bottles ready, or walk further to see if there were any edible goodies in the place.
The area she was in was a small place. She could see the woods thinning out at the other end, but further up was a wooded area that stretched for miles. If there was nothing in this area, then she was going to try the larger wooded area. She just hoped that she didn’t get lost.
She was going to make her way back to the house, but she wanted to check the other side of the woods first.
With the gun under her left armpit, she went through the plantation with zero hassle, and came out of the other side and onto the road. She didn’t want to venture far, because she didn’t want to get lost, so she took a stroll down the road. To either side of her were abandoned fields, and she wondered how far away the next village or town was.
She was approaching a bend in the road and stopped walking. She was unsure whether going further was the correct thing to do. She needed to drink water first, before she did anything else. She decided to be disciplined and return to the house before she got carried away and became lost.
She turned around and walked back over to the trees, and guessed that it would take her ten to fifteen minutes to get back to the house she had stayed in for the night.
As soon as she reached the trees, she veered left, but before she could take one step into the woods, a voice made her stop in her tracks.
It was a male voice.
She wasn’t scared. She had the gun, so she had the power.
She turned around and could see a figure waving and heading towards her. She couldn’t see his face; but he looked smart, like he had just visited a nightclub.
Her eyes narrowed in thought as the man’s face was slowly but surely becoming visible, and once he was only a matter of ten yards away, he stopped and smiled. He was also wearing black shoes.
“Hi,” he said, and raised his hand up as a welcoming gesture. “I’m John. John McHugh.”
“What the…?” Lisa gasped and raised the shotgun, pointing at John’s midriff.
“What … what are you doing?” John stammered and looked agitated. “I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here…” He stopped talking and his eyes widened. He recognised her now, and she could see that the penny had dropped with this John McHugh character.
“You recognise me now. Don’t you?” Lisa flashed the man a devilish grin and her hands remained steady as both barrels pointed at him.
“Oh, shit,” Q gasped.
“Oh, shit indeed,” she cackled. “And where’re your rapist friends?”
Ignoring her question, Q tried to explain to Lisa. “Look, I never touched your daughter. It was Hando that killed her. I’m simply the gopher in that group. I’m not with them anymore.”
“Why?”
“I … I … I just didn’t agree with their methods, shall we say.”
“My daughter is dead because of your friends,” Lisa said coldly. “And you expect me to let you walk away because you’ve suddenly developed a conscience and have left your gang?”
Q ran his fingers through his black hair and threw his head up in thought, gazing at the murky sky. “I know you probably hate me right now—”
“You have no idea—”
“But I’m a good guy. I’m not like them.” Q could see that she wasn’t budging and added, “We can work together. They’re not that far away, but we can get far away from them and survive together. What do you say?”
She didn’t answer Q’s queries. Instead, she asked the nervous man,
“Where’re your friends?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, I think it does.”
“Let me ask you a question,” said Q. “And try and answer this one. Is that gun loaded?”
She nodded.
“And would you have any more cartridges or shells spare once you unloaded it.”
Lisa didn’t know where the man was going with these questions, but she decided to be honest and shook her head. “I only have two.”
“I don’t care how pissed off you are, lady. But you’re gonna need more than two shells to sort out Hando and his men. So don’t waste any of them on me, because these guys are not to be messed with.”
“Neither is a mother that has just lost her daughter.”
“Trust me. Don’t go after them.”
Lisa thought for a moment. Did he have a point? She still had to find Grace, and she couldn’t do that if she was dead … obviously.
“You don’t know what they’re capable of,” Q continued.
“Oh, I think you’ll find that I do,” Lisa chuckled falsely. “Three of them abused me, one of them killed my daughter, and the skinny guy that took a hit in the eye came back for desserts.”
Q lowered his head, sad at what Hando and his crew had done to this woman. He said, “They’ve done bad things, but what they did to you and your daughter, and then a few things after that … just made me realise that I’d rather try and be out there on my own and die within the next six months, than be with them and continue for another six years. I had had enough, and …” Q smiled and said shaking his head, “Sorry, I ramble when I’m nervous.”
“Are you finished?” Lisa thinned her eyes, no emotion on her features.
“Yes,” Q spoke with a smile. “I’m done now.”
Lisa squeezed the trigger and felt her right shoulder kick back with the blast. She had never fired a gun in her life, and the power of this old looking shotgun took her by surprise.
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