William is quiet for a while after Dan stops talking. They’re almost out of town now, and the traffic is sparse.
“It all makes sense,” William finally says. “It all began here. Right here, right in the middle of fucking Denmark, and not even in Copenhagen, oh no, it began all the way out here in our tiny shithole of a town. Right here!” He stabs the steering wheel with a finger, as if to emphasize his point. “What are the fucking odds, man? Of all the places …”
“I know.”
“And it’s only here,” William goes on. “Right? Isn’t that what you’re telling me?”
“As far as I know.”
“Yeah, it has to be. Since it started with that voodoo-shit. Holy crap, I always imagined it would be some kind of top-secret military project with genetically modified super soldiers or, or maybe a radioactive release or some shit—didn’t you think so? I mean, that’s always how it goes in the movies.”
“I … I didn’t really think about it,” Dan mutters.
“You seriously never contemplated how the apocalypse would go down?” Williams asks, giving him a critical look. “Come on, everybody has!”
“How about you?” Dan asks, conveniently switching the subject. “When did you find out?”
“I was at the hospital right before it went crazy.”
“You were?”
“Yeah, man. I work there—or worked, now that the world is ending. You thought these were my regular clothes?”
Dan hadn’t really noticed it before, but William is wearing what looks like the white shirt and pants that hospital staff usually wear.
“I think I saw that girl you mentioned,” William goes on. “Selina.”
Dan stares at him. “You did?”
William nods and swallows something, but doesn’t say anymore. Dan eyes him for a moment, surprised to see his driver hesitate for the first time. William strikes him as the type of person with tons of confidence; the suntanned skin, tattoos and the latest haircut.
“I think it’s your turn to tell your story,” Dan says, just as they cross the town border and continue out onto the open road stretching far ahead between the open fields.
EIGHTEEN
She’s floating somewhere between wakefulness and unconsciousness. Unpleasant images keep flickering by. Mads sitting up, his eyes all wrong. Krista screaming her heart out as Mads bites down on her chin. The sound of the skin ripping.
“Krista!” she tries to shout, but the word won’t come out. She tries instead to call for help, but that doesn’t work, either. When she turns to look down the street, all the cars are suddenly gone. Instead, an army of living dead comes marching at her.
Mille screams and opens her eyes. The scream catches in her throat, only producing a hoarse whimper. She stares around bewildered, blinking the stinging sweat from her eyes and trying to comprehend what she’s seeing.
She’s lying on the backseat of a car, but not the same as before. Krista isn’t here, and neither is Mads nor the Arab. Instead she can hear unfamiliar voices talking together.
“… in a way it’s my fault; I guess I should have called the police instead of just bailing.”
“They probably wouldn’t have believed you anyway.”
“No, and I thought it was too late anyway. You know, that it had begun in other places, too.”
“It had. At that time the bus must have already been attacked.”
“Yeah, and you know I wrote a warning on the door, but I guess someone must’ve opened it anyway …”
Mille sits up with a strained groan. Her head is spinning, and a stinging pain is throbbing just behind her forehead. Something sniffs the back of her head, and she spins around with a whine of surprise to see a large dog look curiously at her.
“Oh, hey! You’re awake.”
She turns around again. A boy is in the passenger seat and guy a little older than her is behind the wheel. They’re both looking back at her.
“Who are you?” Mille murmurs, rubbing her forehead.
“I’m William and this is Dan. I picked you up back in town—you remember?”
Mille moans. “I don’t know ... I remember Krista, she … oh, no … what happened to her? What happened to Krista?”
The guy behind the wheel sends her an apologetic look in the mirror. “If you’re talking about the girl who was with you in the car—I’m sorry, but she’s dead.”
Mille lowers her head and feels like crying. She’s not sure whether it’s mostly due to grief or shock or confusion, as all of them fight inside her. “My head’s all … did I pass out?”
“Yeah.”
“And where are we going?” She looks out at the fields gliding by.
“We’re going to my uncle’s place, where we’ll be safe for now.”
Mille’s brain is slowly clearing up, and her memory starts throwing up fragments from what she thought was only bad dreams. Her classmates screaming inside the bus, Mads dying on the backseat of the car, Krista trying helplessly to perform CPR on him … it all spins into an awful cocktail, faster and faster.
“Are you all right?” the boy in the passenger seat asks, eyeing her closely. “You’re turning pale.”
“I … I think I’m going to throw up,” Mille croaks.
“Hold on,” William says, hitting the breaks. “Keep it in just a second longer.”
Mille feels the sick come rolling up her throat, and she swallows it convulsively back down. As soon as the car comes to a stop, she opens the door, tumbles out on the burning asphalt and pukes into the dried-out grass of the roadside. It’s been a few hours since she ate, so only a handful of oatmeal comes up. She spits and wipes her mouth with her sleeve. She straightens up and looks around. Except for a few farms in the distance, the area is completely desolate.
When she turns to the car, both boys have gotten out and are now looking at her with something Mille at first interprets as concern.
“I’m okay,” she assures them. “I feel better now.”
She goes to get back in, but William steps carefully in front of her. “Hold on,” he says. “Are you, uhm … are you sure you feel better?”
“Sure,” Mille says. “I mean, it’s the worst day of my life, but other than that, I’m fine. I won’t throw up in your car, I promise.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he says, finding a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. Mille notices he’s dressed in what looks like a hospital staff uniform. “Do you have any wounds?”
Mille looks down and shakes her head. “No.”
“No tiny scratches or anything?”
“No, I tell you!” She’s starting to feel annoyed, mostly because she’s afraid. Afraid because part of her already knows what he’s driving at. “I think I’d notice if I was bitten.”
“You don’t need to get bitten,” Dan says in a grave voice, stepping slightly forward. He can’t be more than fourteen, although his face looks twenty-five. He’s obviously tired, ragged and scared, all at once. “You don’t even need to have been in direct contact with one of them. If you cut yourself on anything with their blood on … I’ve seen it happen.”
Mille breathes deeply, making an effort to get her emotions under control, although everything is firing inside of her. She looks down again. Her clothes are a little messed up—probably from when she collapsed in the middle of the road—but she can’t see any blood. She shrugs. “Look, I don’t know what you want from me. You want me to strip down so you can check me?”
“I thought you’d prefer doing it yourself,” William says, without the faintest smile. “We’ll look away.”
Mille gapes at him. “You can’t be serious. Do you know what I’ve been through today? I have … I have been almost … almost …” Her body is shaking so violently that her throat closes up. Rage and sorrow are choking her and she blinks furiously to keep back the tears as she glowers at William. “Who the hell … do you think … you are?”
He doesn’t answer.
She steps towards the car, expecting for them to grab her and hold her back, but they simply step aside and let her pass. Mille goes to open the car door, but the lock snaps shut.
She turns and stares at William who has the key in his hand. He lights his cigarette in an infuriatingly nonchalant way, as though he’s Bruce Willis in some stupid action movie.
“Drive me home!” she demands. “Drive me back into town!”
“I think you’ll regret that if I do,” he says calmly blowing out smoke. “But if you really want it, I’ll drive you back. I just can’t let you inside my car before you’ve checked yourself. It’s nothing personal, really, but I saw you inside the car with a zombie, and I have no way of knowing what happened to you.”
Mille takes in air to scream at William, when Dan suddenly steps forward and takes hold of her arm.
“I’ve seen it happen twice before,” he says, fixing her eyes with his. “My friend died because he stepped on a piece of broken glass, and an elderly lady got scratched by a cat that had stepped in infected blood. I’m sorry, but I can’t risk it happening again.”
Mille is struck by the amount of pain she sees in his large, blue eyes, and suddenly it feels like she’s imploding. The rage seeps out in a long, shivering breath. She shrugs. “Look, I really don’t think I have any scratches. Honestly. I don’t feel pain anywhere.”
“We just need to be completely sure,” William says, spitting.
Mille checks herself for any scratch wounds. She doesn’t strip down, but she rolls up her sleeves and pulls out her shirt and shorts. The boys watch her silently.
“There,” she says. “All done.”
William looks down. “What about under your feet?”
Mille takes off her sandals and checks the soles of her feet. “Nothing.”
“Can I check the back of your neck, please?” Dan asks carefully, and Mille pulls her hair aside, letting him check her skin. “It looks fine,” he says.
“Congratulations!” William says, smiling at her in a way Mille finds both really annoying and annoyingly charming, as he drops the cigarette on the asphalt and steps on it. “You’ve made it through round one.”
NINETEEN
“This is it,” William announces as he sees Holger’s place coming up ahead.
The house is lying atop a small hill a couple hundred yards off the road, making it visible from far away, a single windmill right next to it, whirling lazily in the hot summer air. William slows down the car and turns onto the gravel road winding its way up to the house.
“Does your uncle know we’re coming?” Dan asks.
“Sure, I spoke with him on the phone earlier,” William says, darting a glance in the rearview mirror. “Speaking of, don’t you have anybody to call? Like your parents, perhaps?”
To his surprise Mille just shakes her head, not even looking at him.
“Really? Is there no one who needs to know where you are? Or maybe someone you’d like to warn about what’s going to happen?”
“No,” Mille says, still glancing out of the window. “All of my friends died on that bus.”
William can still picture the scene, even though Mille only described it briefly and with very little detail. She’s obviously traumatized, and it’s no wonder.
“Then how about your fami—”
“I don’t have a family,” she cuts him off, a sudden fierceness in her voice.
“Okay,” William says, sending Dan a look.
Dan returns the look and shakes his head discretely, as though to say: “Stop digging.”
William changes the subject. “Right, there’s a few things you need to know about my uncle. He’s been battling some mental stuff, but he’s on medication now, so he’s perfectly functional. He might seem a little suspicious, but don’t take it personal, he’s just like that with people he doesn’t know. And he doesn’t like being touched, so don’t shake his hand or anything like that.” He looks at Mille in the mirror; she’s looking back at him with an expression of growing skepticism. “Now, it’s his place, so if he doesn’t want you there for some reason, I’ll have to take you back to town. But I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
“Is this really the best place to be?” Mille asks. “At a mentally ill person’s house, far away from anyone else?”
“Wait until you see the place,” William says. “I think you’ll understand once you do.”
They reach the courtyard, and William brings the car to a halt. Seen from the outside, Holger’s house looks like any other house you’d expect to find out here; there’s a garage and an outside boiler-room beside the residential building.
Holger comes walking around the garage, eyeing the car suspiciously. It’s been a few years since William saw his uncle. Holger gained a couple of pounds and his hairline has receded a bit farther back—other than that, he looks like William remembers him, dressed in way too warm cargo pants and a worn shirt with rolled-up sleeves. His round face is glistening with sweat, and his hands are black from dirt and oil.
“Is that him?” Dan asks.
“That’s him,” William says, adding quickly as Dan unbuckles: “I think it’s better I talk to him first.”
Ozzy whines from the trunk, impatient to go say hello to Holger, whom he apparently recognizes even though he only saw him once.
William opens the door and steps out into the warm afternoon air. “Hey, Holger. Long time no see.”
Holger stops a few yards distance from the car, and William notices a tiny shovel in his hand. “Hello, William,” he says with a bated smile. The tiny eyes seem even more squinted because of Holger’s heavy forehead, but they’re also alert, and right now they’re darting back and forth between William and the car. “Who’s that you’ve brought?”
“Just a couple of friends. I think I might have promised them a spot here at your place.”
Holger’s gaze stops ping-ponging and fastens on William. “Is it because of what they’re saying on the radio?”
William nods.
Holger breathes deeply through his nose and exhales heavily. He looks somehow both scared and relieved at the same time, and William gets why. Holger has been living for twenty years with paranoia, the last ten a little less bad due to the medication, and yet William knows his uncle never really let go of his nagging suspicion that the world would one day soon come to an end, and that belief has made him isolated and a cast-out. Even William’s mom, Holger’s own sister, has had a hard time dealing with her brother, and William still suspects it was part of the reason why she moved to Holland after William left home.
William himself is probably the closest family member Holger has left, quite simply because William is the only one who never judged him for his paranoid thoughts, and today William feels particularly grateful that’s the case.
“How bad is it?” Holger asks, his voice grave.
“Pretty bad. I think it might be the end of society as we know it, but … maybe the authorities can still stop it.”
“The authorities,” Holger sneers, showing his tiny teeth in a humorless grin. “They’re probably the ones who started it.”
“Nope,” William says, and when Holger looks surprised, he adds: “You’ll get the story later.”
Holger eyes him. “So, is it … zombies?”
“Yeah.”
“Are they acting like in the movies?”
“As far as I can tell.”
Holger nods slowly. “I thought it sounded like zombies from what they’re saying on the radio. Of course they didn’t use that word. And I wasn’t really paying attention, ’cause I’ve been busy harvesting vegetables.” He holds up the shovel, as though to prove what he’s saying. “I got to it right after you called me. It’s a lucky time of year, you know, ’cause there’ll be lots to eat the coming months. We can store the potatoes and the onions for weeks, and that way we’ll get fresh vitamins every day. As long as we just—”
“Holger,” William says, holding up a hand. “That’s all
great, it really is. But let’s wait and see, all right? Maybe it doesn’t need to go that far. For now, we’ll just have to take one day at a time. That sound fair?”
Holger studies him for a moment, as though he just said something rather crazy. Then, he nods. “All right. But I already prepared everything.”
“Awesome. I’m really happy you’re willing to help out.” He gestures towards the car. “So, is it cool with you if Dan and Mille stay too?” He quickly adds: “They might be going back home soon, depending on how things unfold.”
Holger looks to the car, then back to William. “Are they trustworthy?” he asks, lowering his voice.
“To be honest, I don’t know them very well. But they’ve both been in contact with the zombies, so they might have—”
“They been in contact with them?” Holger exclaims, stepping backwards.
“Easy, Holger!” William says, realizing his mistake. “I’ve checked them for any wounds or scratches. All three of us. We’re all clean, I promise.”
Holger looks like he seriously considers turning on his heel and sprinting out of the courtyard, but he forces himself to stay. “If we let them in and one of them becomes sick …”
“Then we’ll throw them back out,” William says immediately. “We all agree on that. And same goes for me, of course.” Holger lifts his eyebrows, and William goes on: “I didn’t touch any zombies, I’m just saying.”
Holger takes a few deep breaths, scratches his neck and glances at the car. Two white butterflies whirl across the courtyard in a carefree dance, and William is reminded how surreal the situation is. It might look like an ordinary summer’s day, but nothing might ever be ordinary again.
“All right,” Holger finally mutters. “They can stay for now.”
“Thank you, Holger,” William smiles.
“Shall we go inside?” Holger suggests, nodding towards the house. “I could really use something to drink.”
Dead Meat Box Set [Days 1-3] Page 21
