The homeless man stood with his back to them, his head down and arms in front of him as though he was looking at something in his hands. The dog sniffed at the bodies.
Seeing that the man wasn’t following, Kingsley stopped, turned around and approached him.
“Terry?” said Kingsley. “Are you okay, mate?”
Terry’s head moved to the side. Then slowly he turned and faced Kingsley. He said nothing, just raised his left arm and rolled down the sleeve of his thick green coat. On his pale wrist was a semi-circular red mark. It was hard to say for certain at a distance, but there was really only one thing it could be. Only one reason Terry would be showing them the mark.
It was a bite.
7.
The Greenwood Crescent development site was a few turns ahead and Eric had almost finished relating the details of his plan to Kingsley and the others. A read of his watch told him they had around eighteen minutes left before Mark carried through with his threat to kill Sammy, which was more than enough time to get there. That meant they could take a few extra minutes to prepare.
“You weren’t with us when we met Mark,” Eric said to Kingsley. “I told him you had gone off on your own. He won’t be expecting you to show up. So here’s what I’m thinking: you can sneak around the edge of the site and into one of the houses while I talk to Mark, then find a window where you can get a decent shot on them with the crossbow. I’ll need you to take out one of the other men when I’m about a metre away from Mark and Sammy.”
“What if the doors are locked? How will I get in?”
“None of the houses have doors or windows. At least they hadn’t been fitted on any of the buildings last time I was there, which was the day before we went camping.”
“But you don’t know a hundred percent,” Kingsley persisted.
“Not a hundred percent, no. I don’t know that you’ll definitely be able to get a clear shot on them, either. It’s all guesswork. But it’s what we’ve got.”
“So you’re gonna steal Sammy from right under their noses while I distract them. How?”
“They only have knives. I can disarm a guy with a knife; the issue is, as soon as he sees me making a move towards him all he has to do is jerk his hand and Sammy will be dead. There’s no way I can safely disarm him while he’s holding Sammy and watching me. ” Eric looked at his friend. “Which is why I need you to divert his attention. Can you do it?”
Kingsley sighed and nodded. “If Sammy’s life depends on it, you bet I fucking can.”
Terry’s dog, Archie, started to growl, his ears drawn back and head lowered. The rottweiler glared at a snapper that had emerged from an alley in front of them.
As Kingsley went forward to deal with the snapper, Eric glanced at Terry, who had been walking behind them. The man was silent, scraping at the pavement with his worn shoes as he shifted, ponderous. Eric wasn’t sure if he was still in mild shock or simply in the midst of deep rumination, asking himself the many questions people only thought to ask when they realised their death was imminent.
Although he hadn’t known him for long, Eric was bothered by the fact that Terry had suffered a bite while helping him. Now he felt like he owed the guy, but with Sammy to worry about first and Terry’s life expectancy severely shortened, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get the chance to repay him.
Clearing his throat, Eric spoke to him. “Terry… I want you to know I’m grateful for what you did back there. And I’m sorry you got bit. It could have happened to any of us. If there’s any way I can help you in the time you have left, just say.”
Terry blinked, his eyes glassy. After a moment, he dipped his head in a slow nod.
Appearing back at Eric’s side, Kingsley’s eyes flicked over the homeless man. “How are you feeling?” he asked him.
The amount of time Terry took to reply was an answer in itself.
“There’s this… numbness spreading out from the bite,” he said. “But that’s about it… I’m not afraid to die. I made my peace with the idea of death a long time ago. Before I ended up on the streets, I was in the Royal Marines, you know. I’ve hardly lived a cosy life.”
Archie sniffed his owner’s mangy tracksuit bottoms, then sat by his feet and gazed up at him. Terry lowered himself to one knee and stroked the dog, smiling a little as the animal licked his hands.
“I am afraid of turning, though,” he went on. “Of hurting, killing and not being able to stop myself. There’s too much suffering in this world already and I don’t want to add to it.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Eric said. “We’ll put you down once you turn. If that’s what you want.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
Terry stood, his gaze wandering to Kingsley, back to his dog, then to Kingsley again. He cleared his throat. “The woman – Emma, was it?” Kingsley nodded. “Emma said her uncle – no, her sister’s husband’s uncle – has a safe place. And you know where it is?” Another nod. “Will they look after my dog? I don’t want to leave him on his own. Otherwise, I think I’ll have to put him down and I don’t want to do that.”
“I’m sure they will,” Kingsley said, giving Archie a scratch behind the ears. “If not, I’ll take care of him.”
With the grim image of Sammy’s infected father feasting on the carcass of the family dog resurfacing in his mind, Eric thought, No. No more death. No more of my friends are going to die.
*
Two turns away from the lane off of which Greenwood Crescent was situated, Rebecca made her way to Eric’s side.
He gave her a sideways glance without saying anything. There were beads of dried blood in her hair and as she ran her hands through it – that tic of hers again – her fingers caught on them. So she instead started to pluck the gluey flecks individually from the strands of her hair, talking as she did so.
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca began. “What I did back there was wrong and I owe you an apology. So I’m sorry. I’m not going to stand here and defend my actions, but I will try and explain why I did what I did. If you’ll listen.”
Eric kept his mouth shut. He had nothing to say to her.
“From the moment I turned nine years old, my dad started abusing me. Physically. Emotionally… Sexually. In every way possible. The worst part is that the rest of my family were in on it, my two older brothers always attacking me and shouting at me, my step-mum turning a blind eye. I think they all hated dad, really. And I doubt they knew the full extent of what he did to me behind closed doors. But they couldn’t stand up to him because he’d psychologically broken them, just like he was doing to me. He had us all under his thumb. But that didn’t change how much I fucking hated my step-mum and my brothers for what they did, everything they let happen.
“Most of the abuse stopped when I was fourteen – when doing drugs became my dad’s favourite pastime instead of tormenting me. I still had to live with him, which wasn’t fun, but it was miles easier when he was off his head all the time. Then eventually I moved out, went to live with Kara. We’d been seeing each other for a few months and she was the only person I’d ever told about all of it.
“I was at Kara’s flat the day the infection came to Braintree. I was sitting on her sofa watching the news when the emergency broadcast started playing. Kara came home early in her uniform, said she’d been ordered to go home by her chief because it was obvious from the broadcast that all the calls they were getting were about the same thing, and the backup they would need to handle it wasn’t coming. We were both scared shitless.
“Then the only thing that could make that day worse happened: my family showed up at the door. My dad tried to force me to go back home with them, saying he needed to keep me safe, but I wasn’t having it. Kara wasn’t either. Both of us stood there just trying to get the front door closed as my dad was blocking it, and he grabbed hold of me and tried to pull me outside. Everyone was shouting. He nearly dragged me out into the street – but Kara had her baton and s
he beat him with it so he’d let go. And that’s when the snappers came; they probably heard the yelling. There were about seven, eight of them. My step-mum got bit before they even saw them coming. My dad and brothers tried to pull them off of her, but they had no weapons and they got surrounded so fast…
“I let it happen, watched as they were all mauled to death, listened to their screams. Hearing the fear in my dad’s voice was weird and… and it felt good. But then I started to feel like I was becoming him – revelling in another person’s suffering – and it made me sick and angry to think he’d done that to me, fucked me up so deeply that I could watch my family get eaten alive without giving a shit. That I could get enjoyment from seeing him suffer.”
Rebecca paused. It was the most Eric had ever heard her say, and it occurred to him that maybe she was waiting for him to say something back, waiting to see his reaction to everything she’d just told him.
But then she sighed and continued to talk.
“When you tried to run down the van, when you dismissed my arguments, you reminded me of my dad. It threw me back into that survival-mode headspace. Again, it’s not an excuse, but that’s why I acted so rashly afterwards. When I walked away and left you stranded, Kara said something that I haven’t stopped thinking about since: she said, This is what your dad would have done. He would have left someone behind in a heartbeat to save his own skin. And what happened to him? Those words made me turn back… I’ll understand if you never put your trust in me again, but I’m asking you to forgive me for what I did this one time. Because I don’t want it to be karma that kills me like it killed my dad. Can you forgive me?”
Eric had been prepared to give Rebecca the silent treatment, let her stew in her guilt. But that was when he’d still been pissed off with her.
After hearing her story, he wasn’t angry anymore. Just weary. He could see why Rebecca had done what she had. She wanted a second chance and could he really deny her that when she hadn’t been dealt a fair set of cards in the first place? Her first chance hadn’t been much of a chance at all, by the sound of it.
Eric’s biological parents had died before he was old enough to understand what death was, surrendering his future to the lottery of orphanage. If he hadn’t lucked out with such a loving and jovial foster father, he might have ended up with a family as toxic as Rebecca’s.
He rubbed his face. He was tired. They all were.
“Thanks,” Eric finally said. “For the apology. For telling me everything. And yes, I forgive you. I’m ready to forget about every single thing that’s happened today. Let’s just get Sammy back so we can all move on.”
8.
The entrance to Greenwood Crescent was visible halfway up the street when Terry stopped suddenly to vomit.
As he chucked his guts up, Kingsley wondered what they were going to do with him while they went to confront Mark. They couldn’t bring Terry along with them as an extra head was likely to arouse suspicion from Mark. And if he sensed anything odd going on, if he thought he was being played, he might slit Sammy’s throat open before they had a chance to talk.
Obviously, they could leave him here to wait and then come back for him after they’d rescued Sammy. But Terry was vulnerable in his current state; he was weak. If more snappers came along, he might not be able to defend himself.
And what if he turned before they got back? He was a ticking time bomb and his dog would be the first victim.
Kingsley scanned their surroundings for a safe place to leave the man while Eric and Kara checked on him. Kingsley’s eyes alighted on the building adjacent to the corner they had just turned – a public toilet block. The cubicles inside would have locks on them. That might just be the perfect place, he thought.
He turned to Rebecca. “Hey, I’m gonna check the toilets out. Could be a good place for Terry to rest. Can you come with me and watch my back?”
She nodded.
They jogged over to the toilet block, conscious of their limited time. There were three doors on the low dun-brick structure with signs for men, women and disabled. Kingsley headed for the ladies’ room. Most public male restrooms were unpleasant places at the best of times, let alone when they hadn’t been cleaned for days because of the zombie apocalypse that had ravaged the nation. Kingsley didn’t want to imagine the ammoniacal reek that likely permeated the air inside the men’s room; it wouldn’t be a very comforting smell for someone in Terry’s condition.
Kingsley trained his crossbow on the door at eye-level as he kicked it open. It was dim inside, empty, quiet… until he got five paces in and picked up on the hollow sound of snapping jaws coming from one of three floor-to-ceiling cubicles on the right-hand side of the room.
Approaching the cubicles, he placed the occupant snapper in the one closest to the entrance. The cubicle wasn’t locked but because the door opened inward, the snapper inside couldn’t get out as it didn’t have the cognition to pull instead of push. Having heard the survivors enter, it was now throwing itself against the door repeatedly from the inside.
Rebecca stood side-on to the cubicle and held her machete in front of her chest, pointed at the door.
Then after a few more slams from the snapper on the other side, she turned the door handle, jerked it open, poked her machete through the snapper’s emaciated face as it lunged out from the cubicle.
Kingsley ducked into the other two cubicles to make sure they were empty. Which they were. He twisted a tap on one of the sinks just to test it and got a stream of clear water.
After helping Rebecca take the body outside, he beckoned the others over. As soon as they entered the toilets Terry went to the far wall and sat down with his back against it, hanging his head between his knees. Kingsley squatted next to him and made sure he was fully conscious before he spoke to him.
“The cubicles are all empty,” Kingsley said. “If you feel like you’re close to turning, lock yourself in one of them. That way Archie will be safe from you if it happens.”
He refilled the bottle of water from his backpack at one of the sinks and placed it by Terry’s bag. “We’ll only be around the corner. This seems like a pretty quiet area, not a lot of snappers about, but you best keep that hammer close. Just in case.”
As they left the restroom Kingsley took one last look at the homeless man, who gave a weak smile that was obviously supposed to be reassuring, but instead looked so out of place and forced that for a moment it filled Kingsley with immense despair.
What the fuck are we about to do? he suddenly thought. But he quashed the emotion as soon as he felt it.
The truth of the matter was that sometimes there was no simple way out, no path to avoid pain. But that didn’t mean you should do nothing; dismissing a problem, rejecting reality, was always worse than a poor decision because a problem ignored was bound to grow.
They arrived at the turn into Greenwood Crescent.
Hanging back from the entrance, Eric told the others to wait while he trotted up to the wall of the nearest house on the development, sneaked to the corner and peeked across the packed-dirt driveway towards the centre of the development. He returned to the others with a determined look on his face.
“They’re parked at the end of the driveway, standing in front of the van with Sammy. Waiting for us. I reckon you’ll get a good shot from the second house on this side,” he said to Kingsley. “Go now, get in through the back. We’ll give it a few minutes before we meet them so you can find a spot.”
“Alright,” Kingsley said. “See you on the other side.”
With a tight-lipped smile, he was off. Dashing across the fenceless back garden plots of the newly erected houses.
9.
It was time to go.
The hour would soon be up. If Mark carried out his threat, Emma didn’t want to be around to witness what he had promised to do to Sammy. And she couldn’t bear another minute of listening to the helpless cries that kept spluttering from Sammy’s throat.
She wanted to help. She
really did. But how could she? One woman with a sprained knee against three armed men.
But even the logical fallacy of it wasn’t enough to stop Emma from convincing herself to stay just in case there was a way she could help Sammy. She had to keep reminding herself of what had happened the last time she’d gone out of her way to help someone she didn’t have to – Terry, the homeless guy.
It had resulted in her losing her phone and her car and being cut off from contact with Leena. If she hadn’t helped Terry, she would likely be with her sister right now and not in this dreadful predicament.
So Emma wasn’t going to help anyone this time. It was time to go.
First, she needed to sort her knee out.
She rolled the drivers-side window down so she could speak to the men. “Sorry to bother, but can anyone help me look for a stick or something that I can use as a crutch? My leg’s starting to cramp because I can’t sit comfortably. And I need some fresh air.”
Mark gave Sebastian a sideways glance and said, “Go help her. John and I can handle them if they come.”
Sebastian opened the drivers-side door and looked up at Emma in the passenger seat. “There are some painkillers in the glove box that might help you,” he told her. “Does it hurt a lot?”
“Not so much when I’m sitting still,” she said, finding the painkillers – a few boxes of paracetamol. “It’s just really uncomfortable.”
He nodded. “I don’t know how to treat a sprain but I can help you find a walking stick.”
“Thank you,” she said as Sebastian closed the door and went around the front of the van to the other door. She pushed two paracetamol tablets from a blister pack and swallowed them dry, then turned to let Sebastian assist her as she climbed gingerly out of the vehicle.
“I just need a stick or a pole, something sturdy I can get around with.” Emma pointed to the house in front of them. “Shall we look in there?”
Thrive | Season 1 | Episodes 1-5 Page 16
