Thrive | Season 1 | Episodes 1-5

by Lamb, Harrison J.

  “Shouldn’t have let them in,” he mumbled. “Shouldn’t have fucking done it.” Spinning around, he lifted the crossbow off the table and slid a bolt into it. Kingsley realised what was happening, stepped forward to intervene. But Darren whirled and threatened him with the loaded crossbow.

  “Hey – Darren – please don’t do this to us,” Kingsley said, raising his hands. “Just look me in the eye and listen to me before you do anything. I’m begging you!”

  The man edged toward James, his crossbow snapping back and forth between the three others. “This needs to be done.”

  “No, it really doesn’t. Think about it, mate; you don’t know for sure that he’s going to change. You can’t be certain that he’ll be affected by this virus or whatever it is in the same way as everyone else. Not until you see it. People have survived severe cases of cancer despite being told by doctors that they wouldn’t. And you also don’t know what the government could be doing right now, whether they’re working on a cure. At least let us try—”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve been preparing myself for scenarios like this for what feels like my whole fucking life, and I just can’t count on that. Your friend here is a liability, and I can’t afford to take chances... And don’t call me mate. I doubt we’ll be friends after this.”

  With that, Darren strode forward, took aim at James’ head and fired a bolt through his eye. His head flopped with the force of the projectile entering it, and the fingers of his left hand twitched briefly before curling back into a lax pose. A puddle of blood leaked out around James’ head.

  Kingsley watched it all unfold with that same ringing echo in his ears. The song of his guilt. His chest felt tight under a sudden expanded pressure, his neck throbbing with phantom whiplash.

  The crossbow clattered onto the laminate floorboards, Darren snatching up the machete instead, wary of the anger of James’ friends and the time it would take to reload the crossbow. The man stood guard in front of his table of weapons, blade raised and glinting like a hazard light in the dimness.

  “Get out,” he growled. “Now. Don’t make this difficult.”

  Eric, kneeling next to James’ body, bowed his head in grief as he plucked the bolt out of his friend’s eye. Then standing, he took a deep breath before turning to face Darren.

  Eric took one loping stride towards him. Darren moved forward as well, probably thinking that Eric was going for the crossbow to reuse the bolt in his hand. But he wasn’t.

  As Darren swung the machete in a wide horizontal arc – more of a threat than a defensive action – Eric dropped like a sack of stones and planted the bolt in the other man’s calf.

  Darren yelped and swore as he keeled over, slamming the hilt of the machete down between Eric’s shoulder blades. It was a hard enough hit to drive the air from Eric’s lungs. He crashed face first to the floorboards.

  Darren reached down and yanked the bolt out from his leg in one sharp motion and one loud, enraged yell. Flinging the bolt to the side and out of reach, he pointed his blade at Eric and demanded one last time that they all turn around and leave him be and never come back.

  But his demands were cut short when blood suddenly filled his throat and choked out his words.

  Focused on Eric, he hadn’t seen Sammy approach him quickly from the side with her Swiss pocket knife gripped in a white-knuckled fist. Even if he had, he likely wouldn’t have expected her to plunge a blade into his neck. He had probably assumed that the knives behind him on the dining table were the only ones in the room.

  The man called Darren – just one of the many people they had witnessed die that day – collapsed, spluttering and finally letting his machete fall beside the crossbow so he could use both hands to grasp in desperation at his irreparable throat. His eyes didn’t look so sunken anymore after the life had faded from them. They bulged large and dry from their sockets, accusing, asking questions of Kingsley that he realised he had already answered for himself a while ago.

  *

  They did not have time to give James a proper burial outside. Even if there was no possibility that the other three people from Darren’s group would get back from their supply run any minute now, there also weren’t any places to bury him. The flat block backed up against a wide car park and it had no gardens or green spaces around it.

  The best they could do was cover his body with a bedsheet where it lay on the scarred floor of the flat.

  Tears streamed down Sammy’s face. Eric cheeks and brow trembled as if anger and sorrow were battling for control over his facial expression. Kingsley cried soundlessly.

  “We need…” Sammy struggled to speak between sobs. “We—we need to do something for him. We can’t just leave him here for other people to...”

  “There’s nothing else we can do,” Kingsley said. “We don’t have time. We should already be gone by now. If Darren’s friends come back to this mess, they’ll want someone to blame, and if they’re as well armed as he was, we could be in real trouble. I don’t think James would have wanted a funeral. He wouldn’t have liked us mourning him, he wouldn’t have wanted that kind of attention... He would have wanted to empower us, not make us grieve.”

  Eric was already looting Darren’s flat – grabbing food, weapons, his meagre medical supplies, dropping them into the duffel bag on the chair beside the dining table.

  “I think you’re right,” Sammy whispered after a long, tear-filled pause.

  Eric went into the bedroom and came out with two pillows and a bottle of multivitamins, both of which he also crammed into the bag.

  The chain mace he held in his right hand. He frowned at the spiked head dangling by his hip as if the weapon was an unpredictable beast in need of taming.

  Sammy leaned over James’ shrouded form and balanced something on his chest, her hand remaining over the object for a few seconds before she stood up and turned away, wiping her eyes. Her pocket knife, still wet and glistening from its recent use, lay on James’ body like a sick flower petal, coated in a crimson sap.

  Kingsley knew then what he needed to do. The events of the day had repeatedly dug up sour memories of his bad choices, and now he saw exactly what needed to happen for him to forgive himself.

  He needed to get back to Emma, he needed to make sure she was okay, and he needed to try to make a real apology to her. Just like when he had sat in the doctor’s office after the accident, thinking about how unhealable Emma’s wounds would be while he received his own diagnosis – a minor concussion, some bruising on the ribs – Kingsley realised it was past time he took action to make things better.

  Back then, the action he had resolved to take was to distance himself from Emma, to give her space so that he wouldn't be able to ruin her life anymore. But now he needed to do the opposite – to find her and make sure she was okay.

  *

  The sombre trio had no idea they were being watched as they exited the block of flats.

  They were too busy watching the group of snappers at the butcher’s van as they snuck away to notice the three pairs of eyes regarding them from behind a communal bin next to the building, paying special attention to the chain mace and the overflowing duffel bag they were carrying.

  And of course, they didn’t see Darren’s friends enter the block after they were gone, or creep into the flat with knives and a cricket bat poised. The look of pain and disappointment on those faces when they saw the carnage inside.

  One of them picked up the Swiss pocket knife from the body, twirled the sticky weapon between his fingers for a moment, and then announced through clenched teeth, “We’re going to make those fuckers pay for this.”

  E P I S O D E T W O

  Follow

  1.

  There was just enough light in the mini supermarket for Kingsley to find what they needed. It was only around midday but the sun was strained by thick clouds, bleeding silver through the poster-covered front windows and casting everything in monochrome grey. A sickly yellow light fizzed above a staff
door at the back of the shop, but the main lights were off.

  Kingsley knew he wasn’t alone in here. He’d heard footsteps a few seconds ago and now he could hear what sounded like the crinkle of food packets.

  It was probably an undead – a snapper, as they had started calling them.

  He listened for breathing, sighs, grunts, whispers. The undead didn't use their lungs.

  He couldn’t hear anything except for the faint plastic noise.

  Kingsley edged along the front of the shop, peering down each aisle as he passed. Many of the meat-based food items on the shelves had been ransacked by snappers. Packets of jerky torn open with eager teeth and stiff fingers. Dented tins of chilli scattered on the floor, their contents abandoned for easier meals.

  He would grab some of the untouched foods before he left. They couldn’t risk eating anything that had been touched by the undead in case it made them ill, or infected them with whatever it was that turned people into snappers.

  But right now, Kingsley had to find out who the stores other occupant was. The sound was coming from the refrigerator aisle, the one farthest from the door.

  His hand tightened around the handle of his machete as he approached the last row of shelves. Then, holding his breath, he leaned into the refrigerator aisle and stared down it.

  A snapper – male, checkered shirt, ashen skin, blood coating it’s neck and hands, the entire lower half of it’s jaw missing. Unable to remove the clear plastic packaging from a joint of beef, the snapper attempted to eat the piece of meat by repeatedly shoving it into it’s gaping half-mouth, tongue writhing against the plastic like a leech trying to attach itself to flesh.

  Kingsley’s head swam in dizziness for a moment, eyes locked on the hideous spectacle. As usual, his brain tried to deny what he was seeing. Then, realising that it was as real as his own strange existence – that this world really had become a place in which a person could be missing half of their face and still be walking around – he shook his head and tried not to think of the living, breathing man the snapper had once been.

  He tried instead to think of everything that was happening as the workings of nature. Because really, nature was full of all kinds of horrors. There were animals that participated in cannibalism, parasites that invaded ecosystems and destroyed other lives just to survive, wolf packs that had no care for their weakest members and would leave them behind to fend for themselves in a heartbeat.

  It was only human morals that deemed these things bad. Nature didn’t give a fuck. And while humans were at the top of the food chain, they were spineless in the face of nature.

  Though I guess we’re not top of the food chain anymore, are we?

  The snapper had not noticed Kingsley. It was too busy trying to eat. The urge to devour any meat that it could find was too strong to let a piece of plastic and a mutilated jaw stop it. So Kingsley backed away from the freezer aisle and left the snapper to it, thankful that he wouldn’t have to use the machete.

  He could do it. He had done it enough times. But it felt so wrong, spineless human he was.

  Kingsley went to the back of the shop where the flickering light taunted him by illuminating, over and over again, the barren medicine shelves.

  That was what he had come in here for. Darren hadn't been lying when he’d told them he was low on medical supplies. Although they weren’t in desperate need of meds right now, they wanted to make sure they were well prepared for another situation like James’.

  There were a few boxes of ibuprofen, a bottle of paracetamol-based child medicine and four boxes of congestion tablets.

  Weak shit that probably wouldn't help them much. Still, Kingsley took all the boxes of painkillers and tablets, as there was more than enough space in the duffel bag and he thought it might at least give them a bit of comfort to know they had them if anyone became ill.

  Rushing down the canned goods aisle, Kingsley snatched up as many cans of beans and sweetcorn as he could hold. He tried not to make too much noise, conscious of the dead man still in the shop with him – albeit a harmless one with half a jaw that wouldn’t be able to bite.

  Still, when he realised he could no longer hear the crinkle of plastic, he practically ran out of the store.

  *

  Sammy and Eric both seemed to not notice him when he stumbled out. Eric was examining the back of his hand and Sammy was staring up at the sky with unfocused eyes.

  Kingsley dropped the supplies he’d gathered into the duffel bag on the ground by the front window of the shop. “Nothing much in there, I’m afraid. Just painkillers and some congestion relievers.”

  Sammy swallowed and finally glanced at him and Eric.

  “Right,” she said with a noticeable lack of interest. “There’s something I need to talk to you two about. I’ve made a decision.”

  Kingsley raised his eyebrows, then nodded for her to continue.

  “My mum and dad live in Kelvedon, not far from here. I need to find them. I need to make sure they’re safe. Besides you two, they’re basically all I have left in this world. So I’m going to my mum and dad’s home.”

  "Okay. And?"

  “And I just wanted to tell you that you don’t have to come with me – either of you. I have to find my parents no matter what, but I know you two will also have people you want to see. Your families, loved ones…” She looked Kingsley in the eye.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “I need to get back to Colchester. I know me and Emma aren’t exactly on good terms at the moment, but I want to see her. I have to make sure she’s okay. Nothing is more important to me right now than doing that.”

  Sammy blinked and half-smiled in a show of understanding.

  “But I’ll come with you to find your parents first,” Kingsley went on. “Kelvedon is near enough in the same direction as Colchester anyway, and we’re stronger together. We’ll stand a much better chance of surviving as a group. We should try to stick together for the time being, at least until we have a better understanding of what’s going on.”

  Sammy’s half-smile rose into a full one and the dimples in her cheeks reminded Kingsley of the thoughtful, appreciative young girl he had known in their school days.

  They turned to Eric, who shrugged and agreed to the plan.

  “The only family I have are friends,” he said. “And I’m staring at the most important ones.”

  Having known him since early childhood, Kingsley knew that Eric’s biological parents had died in a house fire when he was a baby, and he had spent most of his youth in a foster ward before being adopted by a jolly, divorced man who loved him unabatedly. His adoptive father had remained single until he passed away seven years ago, and Eric himself was single and openly aromantic; he had few connections, but the people he did have were close.

  “As you said, we should stay together.”

  Kingsley nodded, picked up the duffel bag. “Okay. Let’s go find ourselves a vehicle.”

  2.

  Concrete, brick and glass. Drifting rubbish and blood stains. Corpses stalking the roads on expired legs.

  The tired colour palette of the urban sprawl was not alleviated by the weak sunlight, and the recurring signs of abandonment and death were more of an eyesore than a horror at this point.

  They had thought there would be at least a few cars left that they could take. But every car they came across was either locked – and even if they could risk the noise of smashing a window and breaking into one, none of them knew how to hot-wire a car – or surrounded by too many snappers for it to be worth checking out.

  Clearly, most of the people who had made it out of Braintree alive had taken their cars with them, and most of those who had died and/or been infected had never reached their vehicles which were locked up and collecting dust in the driveways. Likely never to be used again.

  Whether it was the same in the other towns and cities, they had no idea. Kingsley hoped the population of his hometown had fared better with the undead threat, that more peo
ple were alive there, barricaded in their homes, and there were fewer snappers on the streets.

  He hoped Emma would still be there when he arrived.

  After about an hour of searching and failing to find a vehicle, Kingsley started to believe they would end up having to go on foot. He wondered how long it would take, how dangerous it would be, whether he had any chance of finding Emma at all.

  Suddenly he was irritated. He didn’t know what exactly was causing the spurt of emotion – perhaps a combination of everything he had been through recently, along with the hopelessness of their search for a car.

  But his irritation grew into anger.

  And that anger swelled into a fury.

  A snapper shuffled across the road in front of them and Kingsley strode towards it as it turned in their direction, his machete rising. With a suppressed shout, he kicked the snapper in the middle of it’s chest, sending it to the tarmac on it’s back.

  Kingsley hesitated for a brief few seconds before the image of James sprawled out dead on his back, just like this sorry fucker, pumped motion back into his arms and he slashed at the snapper’s legs, severing one at the knee.

  Pinning the snapper to the ground with his foot, Kingsley stared down his blade at the face below him.

  The girl couldn’t have been any older than seventeen. A pair of white headphones clung to her neck, one of the speakers broken and hanging from the frame by a wire. Gym clothes hugged her body, clean and intact apart from a rip in her leggings where infected teeth had torn into her thigh. It looked like the girl had been walking to a gym session when it happened, drowning out the world with her music and blissfully unaware, probably up until the moment she was bitten, of what was going on around her.

  He didn’t want to think about the human being the girl had once been, but it was that frozen expression of shock, agony and regret on her face – the expression she had died with – that made him think about it.