by Brady, Eoin
“Right out of the frying pan, bucko,” the soldier clapped him on the back and took an appreciative look at the crowd of infected. “Some shower of bastards, the lot of you.”
Fin lay low on the top of the wall, gulping down air. “Thank you.”
“You won’t be thanking me if you’re infected. No, actually, I take it back, the death we’d give you will be much cleaner than the one they had for you.”
Fin helped the soldier pull the ladder back. Weepers tripped over their own feet, looking up at them while still running. Fin heard a jaw snap shut and the brittle porcelain click of teeth chomping together. A bit of dirt and grime was all that separated the people on one side of the wall from those on the other. Dim eyes stared at them. Most of the infected did not have the sense to reach up for them. With the weeping, they just looked desperate. The sight of them was maddening. You can barely tell the desperate and the dead apart, not until you hear them weeping and by then it’s likely too late. The soldier spat at them, then set the ladder against the inside of the wall and began climbing down. Fin followed, but before he reached the bottom, he was pulled off. The ladder fell with a clatter and he was forced into the wet leaf litter.
“Are you infected?” Another soldier pushed his knee into Fin’s back to stop him from rising.
“No.”
“Take off the pants and jumper. I need to check for bites.”
Fin complied without complaint. It gave him time to look around. The gatehouse was a hive of activity. Net curtains were pulled over so those inside could see what the commotion was all about. Most of the people there looked awkward holding knives, hammers, crowbars and axes. Uniforms were rare.
“Save the ammunition,” said the man who pulled Fin from the ladder.
“Ah, come on, Burke. It’s better in them than it is sitting idle here. There’s only a few of them left.” Fin followed the voice coming from the canopy. A woman lay on a wooden platform built on the branch of a tall tree. Her rifle aimed down the road.
“All you’re doing is slowing them down for us,” the soldier who dropped the ladder down said, raising good-natured laughter.
Weepers reached the gate. They tried to push themselves through the gaps, distorting their faces grotesquely. Instructors in masks and protective clothing lined civilians up in front of the infected. Wood had been placed to neck height to stop them reaching through. The first zombie was downed by a woman in a long black jacket, frizzy hair and running makeup. It brought a cheer from the crowd and others joined in. Within minutes the sick were inhumanely hacked to second death.
The soldier called Burke took no interest in the slaughter. “I told you to take off your clothes.”
Fin stripped down until he was only wearing boxers and socks. He lifted his arms. His skin bubbled with goosebumps, more from the chase than the cold. Burke ripped the mask from Fin’s face. He held his breath, paranoid that the disease was in the air. Standing there with his face exposed seemed more taboo than wearing only underwear.
“Anybody know him?” Burke asked.
Buzzed from the slaughter of infected, the civilians barely paid any heed to him. All shook their heads. It just dawned on him that some of the regulars that drank in the hotel bar were sometimes sober enough to remember him. He saw no familiar faces. Surely they wouldn’t kill me for working there. Two people checked every inch of his exposed skin and asked him to hold up his boxers.
Burke used his muddy boots to stamp on the pockets of his jacket to search it. It was over in a few moments and he could put his clothes back on. They were damp from the ground. The hostile atmosphere dissipated when the all-clear was sounded. “Are you from here?”
Fin’s heart rate had yet to slow. “What does that matter?”
“Sorry for that welcome,” the soldier from the wall nudged the human hemorrhoid away. “I’m Jason Lynch. Where are you from?”
“Drogheda.”
“You’re far from home.”
“Feels like I’ve never been further. Thanks for the help. I thought it was over there.”
“How did you know there were people here to ask not to shoot?”
Fin had just about gotten his breath back. “I’ve been up in the hills along the coast. I heard gunfire and saw the army working at the pier. Thought they might help.”
“You didn’t see them come back,” Burke grumbled.
“Have you slept lately?”
“The world could be ending and I’d still try for my eight hours.”
Lynch snorted. “Come in and get something to drink, the kettle’s always on for people coming in. Do you take tea or coffee?”
“He’ll need something stronger,” somebody said, walking into the house without looking at Fin.
Sleeping bags covered the floor in the cramped building. He heard snoring behind closed doors. Boxes of tea were stacked on the counter, next to jars of instant coffee, more empty than full.
“How long have you been here?” Fin asked.
Lynch rinsed two cups in the sink and plopped two tea bags in each. A mound of used ones mouldered in the sink. The kettle still steamed from its last use. “We were deployed not long after it started. We were to quarantine Castlebar – didn’t think there were enough rounds of ammunition in Ireland to purge that place. We were tasked with setting up safe zones to move survivors and stem the tide of infected. Like trying to get firewood to grow with nothing but wishful thinking. Town is still full of people in their homes but we let them know that when they run out of food, they are more than welcome to join us here.”
“So long as they’re not bitten,” somebody in a sleeping bag beneath the table added. She shivered despite the heat.
“What’s it like out there now?” a man asked. Fin was almost certain he worked in the supermarket.
Everyone went quiet, the sound of rustling sleeping bags stopped. Most of the survivors kept their face masks on.
“This is the most people I’ve seen in one place for a while. I can’t see how it could get worse. Are we going to be evacuated?”
“Nowhere to go to. We’re here until it’s over, so settle in. We’ve started a quarantine for new arrivals. Had a few nasty incidents before that policy. Bites aren’t the only way to become infected.” Lynch downed his tea, rinsed his cup under the tap and left it upside down on the draining board. Fin left his tea untouched on the table.
“You said you slept last night, well you’ve a choice. Head out with the butcher vans. Saves one of the regulars doing it. When you come back, I'll make sure you’re looked after.”
George mentioned these were becoming work camps. “What’s the other option?”
“You spend twenty four hours in a shipping container.”
“So I’d be a prisoner?”
“Not at all. You’re more than welcome to go back over the wall whenever you like. It sounds bad but we’ve a lot of children in here, this is a precaution to keep them safe. This whole operation is about keeping people alive. If you don’t see the good in that, well, you’d not be welcome here.”
“I only wanted to know what the other option was. I’ll give a dig out in the vans, I don’t mind.”
“Drink up then, they’ll be heading soon.”
Lynch escorted him through the grounds. The land bridge separating the lake from the bay was barricaded with fences and parked cars. They walked through the woods along the shore. Felled trees littered the path.
Lynch followed his gaze. “It’s to slow the infected if they get in.”
“What if they get in and people have to run at night?”
“There’s a curfew in camp, but to be honest with you, if they breach the walls, then that’s it for us. There’s nowhere else for us to go. We’re all waiting on transport home.”
“Any good news from my neck of the woods?”
“There is no good news.”
Westport House was completely transformed: large generators stacked in rows outside the building, floodlights mounted on th
e roof, pointing in every direction. The grounds were alive with activity. In front of fences, heavy machines dug deep trenches and piled the dirt into steep embankments. Walkways were created using scaffolding, and soldiers patrolled, keeping constant watch over the civilians in the fields.
“They fortified a hotel in the woods. It’s where most people sleep. We’re planning on spreading out into the buildings on the quay. We can’t ship people out fast enough, or bring enough supplies to keep us all. It’ll be a modern-day castle by the time we’re finished with it.”
“Can you protect a space this large? What about the car park? It just has wire fence, the wall only goes so far.”
“That’s the truth of it and the worry is all of our efforts won’t matter if we don’t have enough people to defend the walls. We got fences up quick enough and are reinforcing them.”
“What about the noise?”
“Necessary. We’re racing against the infected coming from Galway and Dublin.”
Fin searched the man’s face, desperate to find any hint of joking. Throughout the wood he heard chainsaws chewing through living trees, the crack and snap of those that fell.
“Our recently qualified bricklayers used to be electricians, bakers and bankers. What were you before this?”
“Bartender,” Fin lied. “What’s going on in the house?”
“Command centre, infirmary and sleeping quarters.”
“Infirmary, do you treat the infected too?”
“No, they get seen to elsewhere.”
“There’s a cure?” Fin sounded too optimistic even to his own ears.
“If you get sick, you have the option of a bullet before you start weeping or after.”
Fin regretted ever leaving the loft. He imagined Rebecca and George watching movies on the futon.
Humvees, container lorries, trucks and oil tankers filled the gravel in front of the house. Cars, tents and people wore the grass of the gardens and fields into a muddy brown mess. Lynch slowed down. “You mentioned you’re from Drogheda. Even if you didn’t tell anybody, the accent is a dead giveaway that you’re not from here. Try and keep that to yourself. If you can’t hide the accent, speak as little as possible. Don’t worry about standing out, a lot of people here have stopped talking.”
“What happens if they find out that I’m not a local?”
“You’ll be conscripted for a nasty job. Only difference between you and the soldiers will be training. Discipline, however, has no apprenticeship here. Welcome to the Irish Army.”
“You’re from Donegal?”
Lynch nodded. “I’ll be heading home as soon as relief comes in from Dublin.”
“You have family there?”
“Every last one of them.”
The house was reflected in the lake. The imposing, impenetrable stone had weathered centuries; it only had to hold out a little longer. The swan-shaped pedalboats tethered to the jetty gently jostled. Hungry blackbirds tossed the leaf litter, before children collecting wood for the fires chased them away. How will they remember this atrocity?
The river feeding the lake was dark and dangerous, swollen from the storms. Hi-tech water wheels spun in the current, connected to generators on the shore. Dozens of large, refrigerated containers occupied the field. A helicopter sat idle in the gravel path, protected by an armed guard. Just one. It was less a symbol of hope and more a fear that somebody other than yourself was going to get a seat.
“Don’t let them catch you eyeing that up,” Lynch said. “A few idiots were overheard talking about borrowing it to get to Dublin. They’re walking now.”
The butcher’s shop was a converted shipping container. Workers dressed in bloody aprons hefted carcasses off hooks from frozen food delivery vans to the chopping block. Frosty air billowed out from ones left open. Fin could see sheep and cow carcasses hanging inside. He no longer wondered where the sheep that usually populated the fields had gone. Sawdust lined the ground, but it was far from clean.
“Sean, I’ve a fresh pair of hands for you.”
A man looked up from a half-butchered carcass. Bone peeked through the blushing flesh. It looked pale as marble cut right from the earth. Sean had a belt of scabbards for long, sharp knives. He nodded his head to them in welcome. “Do you know where milk comes from?”
“I’ve a good idea,” Fin said.
“You’ll do then. You’re not going to enjoy what must be done today, but it must be done. If it’s any comfort, you’ll not have any bother sleeping tonight, that’s a promise. There’s two days’ worth of work to be done before your head touches a pillow.”
“I haven’t cut meat before, but I’m a quick learner.”
The butcher eyed Lynch. “You weren’t told what you’d be doing, were you?”
“Helping out at the butcher's van.”
“This here is the easy work, but it requires a bit of skill to save on waste. You’ll be heading into town with a guard, a driver and others to scavenge. Your job is to find pets that have been left behind and, if they haven’t had access to infected meat, kill them and bring them back to me.”
Suddenly a day in a cold container seemed the better option.
“Appears cruel, I know, but it’s quicker than leaving them without food or water. If we let them wander freely, they spread the virus.”
“It hasn’t come to eating them just yet,” Lynch said. “But it’s better to be looking at fresh meat than for it.”
“It’s your first time, so you’ll be with one of our butchers. Mostly you’re valuable as an extra pair of eyes,” Sean said.
“If you don’t think it’s for you, then make an impression on the guard. Nobody will turn down another scavenger. There’s plenty of work regardless of what you do,” Lynch said. “I’ll leave you to it. Good luck.”
Fin had little time to process things while following Sean to the vans. A seemingly endless conveyor belt of trucks came in, were unloaded into refrigerated containers, turned around and went back out again. Nobody took a second look at the hammer Fin carried. Others had shovels, bloodied hurley sticks, hatchets and knives. How quickly things change. He could see the danger of idleness, those few he noticed sitting or standing still had a glazed look to them, like they escaped the horrors of the past few days, only to revisit them in memory. Walls can protect against only so much.
Sean introduced him to Frank, his driver, a bald man with a head full of freckles and a worn jumper. He started when greeted, while guzzling something from a traveling mug. Stifling a burp, he said hello. From the smell in the cab, Fin assumed it was not coffee in the mug. Sarah, the butcher, was a curly-haired, austere woman, who said little upon introduction. The scavengers Kayleigh and Emmet were a little younger than he was. He found their excitement at the prospect of breaking and entering a little disturbing.
Fin climbed into the back. Music played as soon as Frank turned the engine on. He had to shout over the noise to engage Fin in conversation. Remembering Lynch's advice, he kept his responses short, not letting his accent give him away. Frank lost interest and gave up before the first song ended. What job could they possibly have me do, if they found out I was not local, that could be worse than killing pets?
He pictured his three cats alone in the apartment. The thought of any harm coming to them made him shake. To lure them with a promise of food and then kill them. Fair enough, if they would suffer, I understand it. The worst part is not being able to explain it to them.
Since the soldier Burke stamped on his jacket, he wondered if his radio still worked. He imagined Rebecca and George in their redoubt, suring up its faults and exploring the area for supplies. I don’t feel safer yet. I’m here for information to send back to them before leaving. I can’t do that if I stay quiet.
They slowed to a stop in front of the main gate to town. The sheer number of people blocking their path was astounding. It was like the back end of a music festival. Frank held his hand above the car horn and caught himself before pressing it. “I tell
you, you don’t miss it until it’s gone.”
Not one person looked as if they had slept much. Gaunt, grief-stained faces scanned the new arrivals, hoping to see someone they knew. Heavy machinery dug trenches a few feet back from the walls, using the earth to reinforce the stone, any excess was poured into construction trucks.
“They fill dump trucks with soil and stone and empty them in front of the wire fences around the back of the grounds,” Frank said, when he noticed what Fin was looking at.
“Is it enough, do you think?”
Frank glanced in the rear-view mirror. “It will have to be. Work goes on round the clock. If the infection stays out another while longer, then yeah, we’ll be able to sleep a bit easier here at night.”
The walls looked more decorative than defensive. Fortification around the main gate was more impressive: high fences and sharp wire manned by soldiers with rifles and high-beam lights.
“It feels like a warzone,” Fin said.
Sarah finally broke her silence. “In war you might be awarded some quarter. There is no rest here.”
“You’re a ray of sunshine,” Frank said.
A soldier approached the van and opened the door beside Fin. He moved over to make room for her. She stood her rifle between her boots. “Hello, New Face.”
Fin nodded in response but did not have to worry about making further conversation. She turned and looked out the window. Two soldiers waved them through the gate. Outside, a line of people stood in their underwear, clutching their clothes for warmth. Inspectors in hazmat suits checked them for bites and scratches. They waded through a trough of disinfectant and were sprayed down with a strong smelling solution. The van jostled as it went through a bath for the tires. Vehicles entering the camp were washed.
They passed a few people down the street who were putting their clothes back on. A man was shaking so much that he could not button his shirt. One woman sat on the kerb, her head resting on her knees, she clung to her legs. Fin was staring at the bandage on her arm. He did not notice she was watching him until their eyes locked.
