by Brady, Eoin
Rebecca opened a bottle of mineral, the escaping gas making a barely audible hiss, but the room echoed to the sound of Ciara running towards them, slamming into the bar counter. It knocked the wind out of her and she crumpled to the ground. The weeping became a choking, pained gasp. Fin sat with his back to an empty keg. Rebecca closed her eyes, her mouth moving in a wordless prayer.
Fin watched the reflection in the dark glass-fronted fridges. Ciara stood up. Her face spasmed and he saw the gaps in her mouth where she had lost teeth, two incisors jutting out from her lower lip at crooked angles. The full extent of the damage was not visible in the reflection. He remembered her braces only came off last summer. She had always been smiling since then – a smile that cost her six months’ savings in dentistry bills. Watching her silhouette, he could hear her joking about spending all that money and smiling the whole time, until she had to stop because people either thought she was simple or coming on to them.
Her eyes lingered on his and he froze, but she kept scanning. Fin felt for Rebecca's hand and squeezed, hoping she would calm down. Eventually she lost interest and wandered off.
Rebecca mimed the words ‘I’m sorry.’
Fin shook his head to let her know it was not a problem. He took the bottle from her and drank a few slow sips. He did not take too much, if he had to relieve himself in front of Rebecca he would, but preferred not to.
Time dragged by and slowly the day dimmed. Crisps and chocolate bars were the only things to eat, but they were not yet hungry enough to try open the crinkly wrappers.
Rebecca took her phone out and a few moments later Fin vaguely heard his ringtone from across the hotel. Ciara ran and smacked into the function room door with a sickening crunch and collapsed. Through a gap in the hatch they could see her. Despite the damage and experience, she tried the door again, incensed, her fists thumped and slapped against the unyielding wood.
Fin made a slicing gesture with his hand across his throat and Rebecca hung up the phone. He gestured for it and wrote the words that just dawned on him. ‘You have to pull the door from this side to open it.’ Rebecca slumped against the kegs. She went back to ripping beer mats apart and building a little mound of broken pieces.
Fin and Rebecca were woken by the infected battering the window. A lot of noise came from the street below. Car headlights cast shadows that stretched across the walls. If he closed his eyes, the sound of so many people reminded him of summertime crowds, when people had a mind for music and drink.
“I’m calling the Garda station again,” Rebecca said.
Fin did not object, with the infected on the far side of the room making a commotion, they could risk a whisper. He kept watch to let her know if they were coming back. Rebecca got straight through, she started talking, blurting to get everything out.
Ciara turned towards them, but then the man hit the window and she turned away.
“Oh, dear God. It’s a recording, Fin.” She pressed the phone to his ear. The voice on the line gave instructions on how to spot the infection, how to sure up your home and where to go in the following places that were being evacuated. Rebecca rang again. This time, there was no recorded message but a dial tone. She grabbed Fin’s arm in relief. The phone rang out. On the third attempt she was greeted with the automated message. The national emergency number that the government provided played an audio clip on how to cope during the epidemic. They’re calling it that now.
“What is it?” Fin asked.
“Tips on how to secure your home and how to deal with the infected.”
“Perfect. They mentioned safe zones and evacuation plans…”
“Have you ever seen a horror movie? We go and join some evacuation and we die on the way. Why does nobody ever listen to the sound advice given in those films? Because it would be a boring one wherein everybody survives. I’m okay with boring.”
They took it in turns to ring the local station until the battery bar dipped into the red and they turned it off to conserve it. Without his phone Fin had no way of knowing how his family were getting on, or if Solene had responded to his messages yet.
“Have you heard from your folks back on the island?” he said.
“I sent them messages about what we saw on the roads. Told them not to open their door to anybody. They’ll be okay.” She believed it, too.
The smell of ammonia from the ice bucket they were using as a toilet was barely noticeable now. Night crept in and broadened every hour, making it feel endless. The infected did not sleep.
Ciara ceased her weeping during the night. Fin and Rebecca jolted alert when one of the infected fell over. Ciara lay curled up on the floor. She was deathly still.
“Is she dead?” Rebecca asked.
“I don’t know. Didn’t the news mention infected going into a torpor and then getting back up? Maybe she fractured her skull running into the door.”
The man left his vigil by the window and stumbled towards the noise, one foot tripping over the other. The toe of his shoes clipped and dragged along the ground. Rebecca went pale, pushing herself further under the counter.
“We need a plan,” Fin said. He laid out everything useful that they had to hand. Glass bottles and a few fruit-cutting knives. A television remote and some kegs of beer. He could do proper damage with a keg if they could get the man to come through the hatch and drop it on his head – contaminating the area with his blood. He swallowed bile, hardly believing he could think of such a thing. The knives and glass bottle were not much better, too easy to cut yourself.
The man reached the shutters. The bar counter jutted out far enough that he could not easily put his weight against it. His fingers clumsily wove through the gaps. Mouth hanging wide open. His dishevelled suit was torn, creased and soiled with vomit and urine. All manner of smells oozed from him. Bloodshot eyes bulged from his head. He stared at Fin without any hint of recognition, his mouth feebly opening and closing soundlessly, bar the odd lip smack. The skin was pale and shrunken around the fat of his face. From news reports, they knew exactly what somebody as far gone as him could do without remorse.
Rebecca picked up a knife and pricked the sharp end into the creature’s finger. He did not react.
Fin took the knife from her, careful not to touch the blade. “Sir, say something. I’m going to stab you. If you don’t want me to, just nod your head.”
He continued to stare back at him, unable to comprehend the words.
“What happens when he gets better or after all of this ends? I don’t want to go to prison for stabbing somebody. I can’t kill him just because he’s sick,” Fin said.
“You’ve seen zombie movies before, haven’t you?”
“Will you listen to yourself? Those are movies, not instructional videos.” He paced around their cramped confines.
“Look at him, there’s no coming back from that,” Rebecca said.
“What are you doing working here if you have a medical degree?” Fin said with more than a bit of scorn.
“Shut up. Likely, we’re going to die. I don’t want to be trapped in here. This feels too much like a coffin, I can’t spend another night.”
Fin put the tip of the blade through one of the man's fingers. He put force behind it and it slid through until it hit bone. No blood seeped out. Fin shouted at him to elicit any response, quickly glancing at Ciara to see if the noise roused her. She lay still. The man reacted to the sound, but it did nothing to vent Fin’s unease. If anything, he felt worse. He ran to the sink, retched and threw up bile.
Rebecca moved away from him. “Are you infected?”
With his head in the sink, Fin took a few calming breaths, though the stale smell from the drain only further upset his stomach. He turned the tap on, washed his face and towelled off with a musty dish cloth. “I don’t think I am, that was just the first time I ever stabbed a person. I wasn’t prepared for that today.”
Rebecca paced. The man followed her movement, but his swollen fingers were stuck in the shutter
s. The bones broke as he pulled away. Still no pain. Rebecca pointed the remote at the large television at the far end of the room. The sudden noise drew the thing’s attention away from them. Fin dropped the knife in the sink and washed his hands. They hunkered out of sight. Eventually the man shambled off in the direction of the television.
“So, we don’t know if all the guests have left the hotel?” Fin said.
“I don’t know, I told you there was too much for one person to do on the last day. I thought it was empty.”
“I’m not blaming you. I’m trying to come up with a plan. We can’t draw the attention of people on the street because they’ve either already seen or will notice your man. We have to make a run for the office. We can’t bring the packets of crisps with us and all the water is in glass bottles, so we can’t carry too much or they’ll clink together.”
“What if all those people on the street are infected?” Rebecca said.
“That’s something I did not want to imagine. That the uninfected are a minority.”
Rebecca turned the volume up and put the news on. “…Never have I witnessed anything take effect so quickly with such impact.”
“What advice do you have for people that might be worried by all of this?” the reporter asked.
“Don’t panic.”
The effect was made worse by the guest appearing so frazzled. He constantly wrung his hands together.
“Why did they put him in a lab coat?” Fin asked. “Did he come to the station dressed in normal clothes and they asked him to wear it?”
The interviewee filled the awkward silence. “Stay indoors. Have as little contact with other people as possible. Cover your mouth and nose when outside. Avoid public spaces.” He stood up mid-interview and walked off screen.
“I half expected him to suggest we pray,” Rebecca said.
“While it’s distracted by the sound of the television we sneak out and lock the doors, get the keys and get out of here,” Fin said.
“Don’t talk so loud, what if he understands you?”
Fin turned the volume on the TV up and they ducked back down. “How many more do you think are in the hotel?”
“No way of knowing.”
“Right, no point in worrying about that now. Are you ready?” he asked.
“No, but if you gave me a week, I still wouldn’t be.”
They opened the hatch and crawled through to the function room. Ciara’s unseeing eyes stared at the ceiling. They crept to the door and slowly pulled it towards them. Heart and thoughts racing. Sweat stung his eyes. Each time he looked away from the man he imagined him sprinting towards them.
When they were in the hall, Fin closed the door slowly behind them, watching the man through the window. Rebecca kept an eye on the restaurant. The only noise came from outside.
A blanket of grey cloud filled the sky, stretching to the horizon. The road beneath them was blocked with abandoned cars. Half the trawlers and ships that sheltered in the harbour during the storm were gone. He had never seen a crowd of people so widely dispersed. The largest groups were made up of five to eight people. Each bunch actively avoided the others. Some people further down the port were trying to get the sailing ships off their blocks and into the water. None of them were organised. Suitcases and backpacks littered the green. Horns beeped as people desperately urged the stalled traffic ahead of them to move.
They made their way down the empty stairway. In his imagination, behind every door they passed was a corridor full of infected. Silence was almost worse than the noise, it made them tense, expecting something terrible was about to happen.
They entered the lobby and Fin turned the lights off in the stairwell. Four floors of absolute darkness. Rebecca ran into the housekeeping storage and cut the cords off two hoovers with her knife. While Fin held the doors in place, she wrapped the cords tightly around the handles. Together they pushed a vending machine in front of the doors to make a barricade.
Rebecca nearly slipped on the tiles in her haste to get the keys from the office. She made for the main door of the hotel, and Fin fought back the thought that if he left the barricade, infected would spill out. He ran from one door to block another. “Hang on a minute will you? We can’t just run out into the middle of a crowd of panicked people.”
“Really? Because I think those are our kind of people right now.”
“From the moment this happened the advice has been to avoid hotels. I can see why now. We can’t just run out. If they think we’re infected and could cause harm to them or their loved ones, who’d mourn the eradication of two potentially infected strangers? You were willing to let me stab that man upstairs. It’s them and us now.”
“Where are they all going?” Rebecca said. “Do they know something that we don’t?”
“Just wait. Please. Or look, it’s not my place to stop you. If you want to go out there, go, but I’m locking that door behind you.”
“You’re okay with staying here with those things upstairs? We’ve been together since the start of this, I don’t want to split up now.”
“I’m not going to follow you into danger just for the sake of it. We know what’s in here. We have the cameras here and we can make it safe. The food is in the kitchen. We can check the recordings to see where the infected have been. We have water. We can control things here. You asked where all of those people are going. The right question would be to ask what are they running from? Charge your phone, we’ve the computer. We make it safe and then plan. If we must leave, then at least pack enough food and water. Look,” he pointed to the camera. The man still stood in front of the television in the function room, oblivious to their absence. “We’re better off here than we would be out there.”
“Fine.”
Together they heaped chairs and tables against the stairwell door. The next most pressing task was to ensure the bathroom was safe and take it in turns standing watch as the other used it. After they were sure there were no more of those things downstairs, Rebecca brought back a pint glass filled with ice, two glasses and a bottle of top-shelf whiskey from the bar. She poured liberally. The ice crackled as it rose.
“That’s roughly two hundred quid’s worth of booze,” Fin said.
“I don’t think that matters any more, do you?”
“I was thinking more about the hangover in the morning.” He swirled the glass and sipped it. The coolness was more refreshing than the whiskey. He clenched an ice cube between his teeth and let it melt while he scanned the camera feed.
The whiskey was easier to drink after the first glass. It made everything else easier too. Rebecca covered the floor of the office in towels and blankets from the utility room. She filled her glass and lay down with the light of her phone shining on her face.
Fin watched the recordings from the last few days. He swiveled the chair around to face her. “I just had a horrible thought. Somebody in the future could be watching back on the camera feed to see what happened to us before we…”
Rebecca turned onto her side away from him.
“It’ll be okay.” He finished the rest of his drink and lay down. “It’ll be okay.”
11
Suicide Suppository
Most of the bottle was gone before Fin fell asleep. When his eyes closed for long enough, he had vivid dreams of men that did not tire and would not die, of running along the Greenway and getting nowhere. He vaguely remembered being woken by choked sobs. Head pounding from lack of sleep and an adrenaline hangover, his first thought was ‘infected’. He opened his eyes wide enough to see he was still in the office, lying against the door to ensure nothing could sneak up on them. She’s infected. He slowly reached for a knife he had taken from the kitchen.
Her ragged breathing gave way to words. “What are we going to do?”
That was a silence he could not break. He had no answer for her.
“I can’t do this, I can’t.” She repeated the demoralising prayer. The anguish on her face looked grotesque by th
e light of her phone.
Fin moderated his breathing, pretending to still be sleeping, but she was too far gone on the drink to notice. There was nothing he could say to comfort her, so he did not try. Not wanting to intrude upon her grief, he closed his eyes and left her stranded in the dark. His own tears fell silently. From what she was saying he assumed the infection had already reached Achill. Why would it not? Survivors flee to areas without the disease, only to bring it with them. Why bother watching the news any more? Whatever new horror had set Rebecca off was something he could do nothing about. Ignorance was the only balm now.
When he woke again he pinched the back of his hand. Not so lucky. He was almost sure she had nudged him awake.
“What do you think the rest of the staff are up to now?” Rebecca asked.
“Same as we’re doing, hopefully.” He sat up; his back ached because of how he slept. A cold draft coming from beneath the door had made it difficult to settle fully. Whiskey was a mistake, though he doubted he would have slept without it, knowing those things were in the hotel with them. “Any update on our guests upstairs?”
Rebecca handed him a bottle of water. “I’ve stopped watching. How’s the head?”
He downed half the bottle to get rid of his cottonmouth. “I don’t feel great.”
“Well don’t get sick in here. We’ll head into the kitchen,” Rebecca said.
“It’s weird not having anything to do, or anywhere to be.” Fin finished the bottle of water.
“Nothing to do? We have to get home, that’s enough to keep us busy. What more do you want?”
“There’s a country between here and where I need to be. Would you attempt to walk across Ireland with what’s going on at the moment?”
“If I had to,” Rebecca said, in a tone that stung for the implication that he was not trying hard enough to be with his family. “No point in wallowing. Let’s get on with the day.”
