by Brady, Eoin
He turned in his seat to hold her gaze until she was out of sight. Her eyes were red from crying or the infection, he was not sure. How can people just leave her there? Nobody offered comfort or help. Other survivors left a wide berth between them and the living infected. He tried to catch the eye of the others in the van, but they pointedly ignored him. It was not their first time in town.
Fin put his hand over his mouth and bit into the side of it, putting every effort into holding back tears. He imagined a scene like that somewhere in the country, only it was Solene alone, invisible in a crowd, waiting to die.
20
Cruel to be Kind
Snipers on the rooftops kept a constant vigil over the rejected refugees. The commotion made it seem like they were on a busy construction site, vehicles in a constant slow procession, leaving and entering the camp. When George had told him that they put you to work, he did not imagine the world had devolved so quickly, that survivors were now labourers. Labourers are survivors.
“They only give us enough fuel to get where we’re going and back again,” Frank said. “Sure, you could try siphon some out of other vehicles, but they only hire drivers with family inside the camp.”
Fin looked over at the soldier from the corner of his eye. She took no offence to what Frank was saying. Take the uniforms away, what do you see? The same despair as the rest of us.
Abandoned cars were pushed onto the sidewalk and into the middle of the road in some streets. Traffic and people were all funneled one way. Shops, pubs and restaurants all had their Christmas opening hours displayed in windows. Most of the buildings showed signs of forced entry; one apartment had fingers of black scorch marks reaching from its burnt out husk. Looters had pried open all the shutters keeping them from food.
The pavement was littered with cigarette butts, a few used nappies, food wrappers, chewing gum and trash. Piles of rubbish bags mouldered in front of buildings. Excrement was mostly hidden by soiled tissue paper. Fin could not imagine relieving himself in front of others. Then again, I’d rather that than being out of view and far from help. A man sat on a bench overlooking the river, drinking cans of beer. He greeted passing refugees with a smile.
The moment they were beyond the gate, Frank turned the radio off. He continued the song by humming it from memory. His wedding ring clicked against the steering wheel as he nervously tapped out the beat. Fin had never felt the presence of silence so poignantly. He opened his window to let noise in. He smelled the smoke before he saw the pyre of burning bodies, a scaffolding of spent flesh. High fences hid the worst of it from view. Workers in sealed suits closed the gate after bags of clothing were tossed into the flames. It passed from view so quickly that he wondered if it even existed.
Bodies littered the streets outside town, the blood stains beneath them dark and old. Too many to be afforded immolation – they would drown the fire. Crows and other scavengers were doing their part. People had tried to cover them with tarps, tablecloths and bedding, but they were the first ones to die. Workers threw bodies onto the back of flatbed trucks. Armed soldiers escorted each group.
Frank pointed at a massive column of black smoke in the distance. “That’s the first burning field they opened. It’s like the plague. People wrap up their loved ones and leave the bodies on the side of the road to be collected. Ain’t no way to treat the dead.”
The comment made the soldier turn away from the window. “Frank, once the dead stop disrespecting us, we’ll go back to respecting them. If they would voluntarily walk into their graves, I’d happily put wreaths on them all.”
Fin watched the faces of the corpses with morbid fascination; all of these suffered head trauma, making them seem less real. With so many gone, this will be a silent land. Some survivors blessed themselves as they passed bodies and Fin found it difficult to understand how those that had faith before the outbreak managed to hold on to it now. Houses were emptied in an orderly fashion, everything of use was loaded into trucks and brought back to the camp. Fuel caps dangled open on every car they passed.
“That’s not a job I’d fancy,” Frank nodded at the groups collecting fuel. They had a much larger force protecting them. “Nobody is paying much attention to the fact the roads are mostly impassable, they only see the army taking away their means of escape.”
“To go where?” Fin asked.
“Anywhere but here.” Frank stopped at the entrance to a housing estate. As soon as they got out, he lit up a cigarette and locked the doors. “Pet food’s in the boot,” he said to Fin, through the window.
Sarah threw him a backpack and he filled it from crates of dog and cat food. She put a bandolier of canisters on and strapped a bolt gun to her waist.
“Are the injections not more humane?”
“Can’t eat them then,” she gave him a grim, sardonic grin.
“I don’t want to do this.”
Sarah put a gloved hand on his shoulder. “You and me both. I’m a veterinarian.”
“How can you do it?”
“If I don’t and somebody more eager and less skilled does, the animals suffer. Our job today is to ensure that none leave this world without a bit of kindness. All you need to concern yourself with is feeding them and giving them a little bit of love, before I do my job. You can do that.”
The soldier brought them together. “My name is Muireann, shout and I’ll be there. The estate has been swept for weepers, but we still have to approach every door with the belief that there is a hungry horde waiting behind it. Don’t go far from each other. It’s one house at a time. The quicker we get things done, the faster we’ll be back behind the gate.”
“You want us to shout?” Fin said.
“Yes. If there is trouble, the undead will be drawn to your shouting and I’ll have an easier time of getting home. Let’s go.”
Across the street people lined up for a mini-bus, their shift over. Fin did a double-take: he recognised somebody, a middle-aged man with a well-defined paunch. Fin never saw him without his wife. They were regulars in the bar for a late Sunday lunch of pints. He was even wearing his usual weekend suit, though it was dirty and torn. He did not know their names, instead referring to them by their orders. Your man who always asks “Have you pulled any Guinness today?” and his wife ‘G&T with no ice’. The man never looked up to answer Fin’s stares. He was hunched over, chest rising noticeably, like all he could focus on was breathing.
They walked past an armed guard, his expression hidden behind the mask. “Are they stopping people from leaving?” Fin asked.
“They’re here for your protection,” Sarah's voice was so low that Fin was not sure if he imagined the scorn.
With the weight of the task ahead, all he heard was the sound of dogs barking across town. It was incessant, driven by the wailing weep of infected and the screams of those they hunted. Those noises were a distant but constant presence. How many pets are there in town? In the country? Will the death toll after this ends be so high that it can only ever be an estimate?
“There’s a team of electricians ahead of us that deal with alarms,” Sarah said.
Her voice shook him out of his secret thoughts of running away: sneaking off to use the bathroom and heading back to George and Rebecca. No. I need to go home.
The garden gate of the first house sighed shrilly on its hinges and the front door opened. An elderly man stood on the porch. Muireann pushed by Fin, rifle raised.
“Are you here to help? Is it over?” The relief on his face was painful to see.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” Muireann lowered her weapon. “We’re bringing survivors to Westport House, you’ll be safe there.”
A team across the road broke open the front door of a building and entered. The man’s expression soured. “Bunch of thieves.”
“Sir, we’re not going to enter your property. All we’re doing is taking food, medicine and the essentials from empty buildings and bringing it to those that need it. We’ve a bus at the entrance to the est
ate, please join us. You’ll be given a room in the hotel,” Muireann said.
“Leave me in peace, the radio said avoid crowds. Get off my property, please.” He hesitated before closing the door, possibly afraid he was burning his last bridge.
“You know where we are.” Muireann led them back out the garden path and closed the gate behind them. They went right next door. She rang the bell. The man from the first house watched them through his net curtains.
“You’d think he would jump at the chance,” Fin whispered. People came out of houses further down the street with packed suitcases, running to catch the bus. Volunteers took their luggage and stacked it in trucks. Before they were out of view, scavengers were already entering their homes. Some of them had cat carrier cages and dogs on leashes. “What about those?”
“We let people bring them along. Killing family pets in front of children tends to hamper good relations,” Muireann said.
They rang the doorbell again, but nobody answered. Emmet broke the lock with two swings of a sledgehammer. When the door flew open, they stood back, ready for one of the infected to rush out. The house was empty. Fin wiped his feet on the worn welcome mat.
Muireann checked each room before she let them in. Once they were sure it was clear, they separated into groups, two people per room. There were no pets, and Fin gladly helped search the house for anything they could use. Sarah emptied the press beneath the sink, bagging bottles of bleach and hand wash. The room smelled of stale smoke and potpourri. Fin filled a bag with tins of tuna in brine, boxes of cornflakes, porridge and pasta.
An orange in the fruit bowl was shrunken and green with mold.
“How long do you think it will be until we have lemons again?” Sarah asked.
“I can’t remember the last time I used lemon when it wasn’t for a drink,” Kayleigh said.
“I was thinking more along the lines of lemon-zested pancakes.”
“Next person that mentions food that does not come from a can will be shot,” Muireann said.
It only took them a few minutes to bag everything of use from the house. Fin found an old biscuit tin full of money in the nightstand. He put it back with care. The owner did not plan to leave, they might be dead then. On a last sweep back through the house, he saw the tin open and empty, tossed on the bed. Muireann carried ammunition and her weapon. Sarah was with me. It was Kayleigh or Emmet. Why take it? It’s useless now.
They left the spoils on the roadside to be collected by others. Fin brought the house plants he found and left them in sheltered places, out of the wind but where they would get a bit of rain. Most were too long without water, and he held them all under the tap to soak the soil.
“The cold will kill them,” Muireann said.
“Then it’ll be faster than dying of thirst inside.”
They competed against the team across the road to see who could clear the most houses. Each subsequent home took less time to sack than the last. They came across their first animal in the fourth house: a small shaggy-haired mongrel, curled up in its basket, surrounded by squeaky toys. It was clear by the smell in the house that he was gone, but Sarah knelt to examine him, and stroked his head. Out of all the things he had seen, this scene would linger: the empty food bowl, the chewed boxes of food and desperate scratches on the door, the torn window curtains.
“Did nobody hear him barking?” Fin asked. “The street is full of people.”
“It’s not their fault,” Sarah said. “They’re terrified.” When she turned around, she saw the consternation on Fin’s face and smiled. “You know what, I’m going to take great pleasure in firing you.”
“I don’t know how you do it.”
“Necessity.”
He found it much easier to empty this house. Any owner who could leave their pet trapped to starve did not deserve the respect of closing cupboards after he opened them.
Near the end of the estate there was a concentrated collection of corpses. Loud barking in the back garden had drawn the undead, but they had no way of reaching through the gate. Fin skipped a few houses to get a look at the dog. It growled when it first saw him, but quickly started whining and yapping. Can it tell I’m not infected? The massive labrador paced against the gate. Fin slowly approached, opening a can of food and holding it out.
The dog’s tongue lolled and his tail wagged warily. He snarled his teeth when Fin came on too fast. There was a large kennel and a pond at the back of the building.
Before he could reach the dog, he was yanked backwards off his feet, the can of food falling to the ground. Muireann stood over him. “Can’t touch that one, too dangerous. There are wounds on those bodies. We’ll do it through the bars.”
“Can I feed him at least?”
“Those are to distract them while we do the business. It won’t matter.”
“You think the headstone is for the one occupying the grave?” Sarah said to Muireann.
Muireann pulled a warning face, but relented with a nod and let Fin pick up the can. He threw a stick over the wall to get the dog to move away. It was emaciated and did not run, instead he shuffled after it in case it was food. Fin emptied the tin onto the ground inside the gate. The labrador dropped the stick when he saw the food and yapped. The pile of food was gone in a matter of bites.
“Head on to the next house,” Muireann said. “You too, Sarah, the bolt is too short for this.”
Emmet knocked and tried the door. It was unlocked. Muireann fired one shot which made them all jump. “Let's pick up the pace,” Sarah said. “All this noise is bound to draw them.”
Kayleigh took particular pleasure in opening Christmas presents. She found nothing of use, but she pocketed some of the finer jewellery and phones. Fin emptied presses in the kitchen, while Emmet sorted through the fridge for anything still edible. “Best part about this detail,” he said with a mouthful of pudding.
A shout from upstairs caused Emmet to choke. Fin dropped a school report he was reading and fumbled for his hammer.
“Sarah!” Muireann ran through the front door and tore up the stairs. They knew by the scream that they were too late.
Emmet ran out the front door, quickly followed by Kayleigh. Fin followed after Muireann, she turned right into a bedroom. Fin tripped on the stairs when he heard the gunshot. Inside the room, the body of a teenage boy lay motionless on the ground. He was wearing headphones when he turned. They came off in the fall. Light shining through a crack in the curtains showed pillars of falling dust. Fin held his breath. Muireann examined the wound on Sarah's arm.
“Check the other rooms!” Muireann said when she noticed Fin gawking.
Sarah was transfixed by the wound on her arm and the small pricks of blood seeping through the sleeve of her jumper. He went through the rest of the house. There was nobody else.
“I’m so sorry, Sarah, I should have gone in first.”
“It’s okay, Muireann. Let’s go,” her voice skipped.
Fin stood awkwardly on the landing, unsure of what to say when he saw her. She held her bitten arm delicately. Muireann helped her down. She looked like a scolded child.
Sarah sat on the edge of a lorry trailer. She looked up into the sky, her teeth grinding. Every kind of emotion showed on her face. Fin tried to imagine what his last thoughts would be. Right now, all he could focus on was how cold it was.
“Fin, come here to me.” She handed the belt for the bolt gun to him and showed him how to use it and reload the gas canisters. “You never want them to feel any pain, be quick. Always aim for the centre. Watch.” She lifted it to the side of her skull and pulled the trigger. Gas hissed as the bolt shot out. Her eyes lost focus; one rolled back into her head. She collapsed, her back arched and her legs spasmed. She was still alive and making noise.
“Get out of the way,” Muireann fired once from her handgun. Sarah stopped moving. “I would have done it for you.”
Fin did not want to take the bolt gun. He made no promise to her, but Muireann handed it to him
.
“Let's go, we’ve done enough for today,” Muireann said.
“Are we just leaving her?” Fin asked.
“There’s another group that deals with the bodies.”
He was too numb to respond. Frank waited for Sarah to get back in the van. When she did not, he looked at their faces in the rear-view mirror, let out a sigh and started the engine.
21
Mercy
The trip back through town felt longer. Earlier, the sight of so many soldiers felt like a comfort of sorts. Now that he knew just how easily their weapons could be turned on him, they were a much more ominous presence. Was the little haul of salvage worth a life? He looked for somebody to blame. Emmet did not wait long enough before entering. Kayleigh was too busy filling her pockets with useless trinkets. I was snooping. With nowhere to put the anger, he internalised it.
Frank drove past the Garda station, the barricade by the front door was reinforced. Most of the upper windows had been broken by stones. Wooden boards blocked the guts of the building from view. People had graffitied slogans on the side of the station, things like ‘Inhuman’, ‘Scum’, ‘Dead Inside’. Fin could see somebody standing in the shadows of an upstairs window. “Did you get the cops to come out?”
Frank rolled down his window and spat. “They never left. When we asked for help, they said the station was overrun with infected, that a few survivors were keeping the doors locked to hold them in. Lies. Then when we begged, they shot at us. That place is a fortress, but they’re under siege by the living and the dead. They show their heads around town, they’ll be shot on sight for what they’ve done. The real officers died protecting us, doing their jobs. Those in there are moral paupers in stolen clothes.”
