by Brady, Eoin
Fin was only half-listening. In a few moments they would pass the car park behind his apartment. A bubble of bile floated at the back of his throat when he considered abandoning the crew. Nobody spoke out of respect for the recently fallen member of the team. I don’t want there to be only silence that follows my death. Solene’s note weighed heavily in his pocket. As the car passed the entrance to the car park, Fin’s mouth made up his mind before he could second-guess himself. “Stop!”
Frank slammed on the breaks, making the seatbelts cut into the passengers. Fin opened the door and ran, avoiding the few bodies he found on the road. He did not look back. Nobody shouted after him; nobody much cared for strangers these days.
He sprinted past cars, keeping low. Rebecca’s car was still there, though her boot was open and the supplies they had left behind were gone. The door to his apartment complex courtyard was still broken. He stepped over the shattered glass and pile of tables and chairs, an ineffective barricade. He hid at the top of the stairs, out of view of the street, and waited. After a while something passed the door on the street below, a staggered shuffle, like somebody defeated by drink after a night on it.
Fin watched the apartments next to his for any sign of movement. After about half an hour, he opened the door to the courtyard wide enough to crawl through. He crept over the wet paving slabs beneath windows, keeping low and out of sight.
The key to his apartment was slippery from the sweat of his palm. He stood, turned the lock, walked inside and slid down the wall to the floor. He locked the door while hiding on his knees. Safe. The smell of the litter box made him gag. A brief silence was broken by the patter of little paws across tile and wood. The three cats stopped at the top of the stairs, but when they saw him, they nearly tripped in their haste to be near him. They mewled incessantly.
Flo flopped onto her side for a rub. Poncho chomped as Fin scratched behind his chin, while Mooch dug his claws into Fin’s trousers.
“I’m sorry, guys.”
Fin fed them with the tins of wet food and the bag of kibble he had taken from the butcher’s van. The cats were only quiet when their mouths were full. While they ate, he emptied their litter boxes and cleaned them out with bleach before refilling them. The downstairs window in the front bedroom was open, little pawprints muddied the floor. They may have brought the infection in with them. Fin kept his mask on.
He disinfected the counters and chairs and mopped the floor. Most of the kibble he had spilled onto the ground for them was gone. He rinsed out their bowls and filled them again.
The bolt gun felt like a toy in his hand. No wonder Sarah was able to use it so flippantly on herself. If not for Muireann’s bullet, how long would she have suffered?
Fin filled the kettle and made a strong coffee. The cats went to their baskets, but kept an eye on him, for fear he might disappear. The washing machine was still full of clothes that he had forgotten to take out; he slammed its door closed after opening it and getting a noseful of the smell of mould. The fridge still hummed and the water heater had been on this whole time. It brought a smile to his face thinking that the electricity company would have a hard time finding him. More than likely they would manage to get a strongly worded warning letter to him. He put his letter for Solene on the kitchen table. It looked out of place, safe and crinkled in a plastic pocket. The surroundings were unchanged since she last stood here. Fin was tired beyond exhaustion. Body weary, he sat down in the shrine to the old world.
The coffee was cold when he woke. At one point he thought to put the games console on and disappear in a story, be the hero and defeat the enemies, earn the digital trophies and savour that momentary, artificial success: restart when he was overwhelmed, change the difficulty if it became too hard to handle.
Photos of him and Solene leered at him from the walls. Fin packed all of their photos into a plastic pocket and hid them at the bottom of his wardrobe. He kept one of Solene. I wish I had taken more.
While pouring his coffee down the drain, movement in the apartment across the alley caught his eye. He ducked out of sight, giving it a few minutes before standing enough to peek out the window. The couple in the apartment were long dead, the infection had robbed them of their humanity. They aimlessly wandered around the sitting room, not straying far from the light of the television.
What are their names again? If we had not been so selfish and just told them to join us, they might still be alive. They could be in the safehouse with George and Rebecca. No, they were a liability. He did not believe it. If they were alive, would they be ransacking homes, culling the infected or killing animals? Are they better off? He was not sure. At least they were together in the end.
The plants he had thrown across had been picked apart, not even the stems stuck out of the soil.
“Hey!” he roared at them. The cats bolted from their beds. The neighbours walked to the window, their milky, glazed, bloodshot eyes locked on his. Beneath the window, weepers stirred. He despised every last one of them. He shut the blinds, hoping he would soon be forgotten. Now he could pretend that the noise outside was from shoppers; maybe if he had something stronger than coffee in the house, he might have been able to numb himself enough to treat them with the indifference reserved for normalcy.
Mooch was first. Fin picked him up and set him on his lap. The cat had a little white stripe of fur down his front, contrasted against the black. He looked like a little gentleman in a tuxedo. When he meowed it sounded like a chirping bird. Those sweet, curious and full eyes always made him look like he was stoned, wired on the world. He nuzzled Fin’s hand, nudging him for more scratches. Fin rested his forehead on the cat’s. “I’m sorry for every slipper I ever threw at you and for those times when I accidentally stepped on your foot. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.” Fin held a knife to Mooch’s neck and carefully cut away the bell collar. “That’s all I can do for you. Stay safe, I’ll find you when this is over.” He kissed the cat and set him down. He called Flo over next.
They looked strange without their red collars. The fresh food he put out for them should last a week. After that, they were on their own. They sometimes brought mice back to the house. Would they know that was food? Even still, their life of relative luxury is over. If they did not eat the bodies clogging the streets, then the wave of rodents gorging on them would certainly be on their menu. There’s something: if we survive this, then the rats, plague and diseases will finish the job.
Fin emptied the water from the bath and put the stopper back in. He tied a towel to the faucet before turning the tap on. The stream of hot water ran down the towel, making no noise as it filled the tub. Steam fogged the window. When it was full, he dropped a bath bomb in to fizzle. Normally he would lower himself in over the course of a few agonising minutes, while his skin turned red. Now, he did not mind the heat. He felt numb to it. The water came up to his chin, his knees stuck out like pale, barren islands.
Rifling through his bunched-up trousers, he pulled the radio from his pocket. “Hey guys.”
“We thought you were dead.” George sounded jubilant. “Glad to hear from you. What happened? Where are you?”
“How is it?” Rebecca asked.
“I think the world is ending.” He told them everything he saw in the camp: the forced work in order to eat, the implied threat of being sent out to walk to safety if you don’t comply with rules. So many people crammed together, it was like tinder beside a spitting fire. Rebecca cursed at his retelling of the butcher van and what they did to the pets. There was a silence after he told them about Sarah. “It was the right idea to leave the hotel, there are so many people that have been infected and are yet to turn. There’s nothing stopping them from going into the hotels to turn, they’ve nothing to lose now.”
“Come back to us lad, that place sounds mad,” George said.
“I don’t think I can make it back the way I came. The lane to the house is too cramped. Sure I was only down the road from you when the first weeper came a
t me. Have you had any trouble?”
Rebecca took the radio. “We’ve watched a few of them pass by. They ignore the house completely.”
“I don’t know that you can stay there long. They have teams scavenging the houses around town. They’ll run out of things to take in the more built up areas and will be out that way soon.”
“We can’t stay? Are you still thinking of trying for Dublin?” Fin could read the disapproval in her tone.
“I don’t think it’s safe to wander the streets with the military out, they aren’t keen on taking chances. The safest option for me now is to head back through Westport House. If they tell me there’s no train, I can head through the grounds and avoid the roads. If there is a train – I have to try.”
“Do you think they’ll let you back in after bailing on them?” George asked.
“Well they’re a lot easier to reason with than the infected, I’ll make something up.”
“Fair enough.”
“Good luck. Let us know what the plan is and we’ll help in any way that we can,” Rebecca said.
They had little to report on their end. They had spent the day searching for supplies and shoring up the house as best they could. Fin put the radio down and slipped deeper into the water. All that effort spent trying to get home and he only managed to get back to where he started. They were not letting people go easily – workers were too valuable for that – but they were mouths to feed too and infected to deal with down the line. Not even the soldiers seemed like they wanted to be there.
Fin soaked up the warmth of the bath, dried off and dressed in his dirty clothes. If they did have an issue with him running off, and he wore a change of clothes, they could say he was looting. He doubted they would, but just in case. He did not open the door of the bedroom he shared with Solene. He had never craved anything as much as to curl up in their bed and smell her ghost on the pillows. He would not be able to leave that room.
Upstairs the cats were sleeping, he stroked them while they purred. Solene’s letter was safe on the table. At least she would know his last thoughts. Everything he wanted to say to her was there, and he did not know how much it had weighed upon him. There was a sense of relief. He was free now to make his way back home and be with his family.
With full bellies they did not care to get out of their baskets when he readied to leave. He pushed the spare bedroom window open further and moved the bed in front of the door to keep it open. They were afraid of strangers; if Muireann and the scavengers came here, at least they could escape. He quietly locked the door behind him while the cats dreamed.
22
Tourist
It took ten minutes to get to the gates of Westport House from his apartment. It was the route he used to walk to work, but now he had to avoid corpses on the street and the aimless wandering of the shell-shocked. Fin was not the only one beyond the wall on work detail, and he melted into the crowd of downcast workers and refugees. So long as he acted as normal as could be expected of somebody these days, the soldiers ignored him.
When he started down the road towards the gates of Westport House, he felt like he could not shake the stares of the snipers on the rooftops, their intent hidden behind masks. Fin slowed his walk to look casual, but sweat poured from his face. What if they think it’s because I’m sick? The thought made him sweat more. Screens had been brought out to hide the new arrivals’ semi-naked bodies from view while they waited to be searched. Everybody seemed to have to go through the process to gain entry.
Fin was about to take his jumper off in the slow procession when he heard a familiar voice.“I didn’t think I’d see you again, New Face,” Muireann said from behind the gate.
Standing in the frigid water trough of disinfectant, he shivered; he imagined the only reason there was not a layer of ice on top was because of how many people walked through it. Muireann walked up to the line, ignoring questions from others looking for answers. “What was that about earlier?”
“I had family to take care of.” He handed her the bolt gun with the belt of gas canisters. Before leaving the house, he had thrown two of them in the bin, just in case she questioned his story. If she noticed this, she did not seem to care. He wondered how she could function so well after Sarah’s death. Before the epidemic he had not really known grief, it was something he knew he would eventually have to become accustomed to, now he was stepped in it beyond saturation.
“You back for work, or what’s your plan? Frank thought you went a bit mad.”
“Frank, the guy with the easiest job in the whole county?”
Muireann smiled. “We’re down a vet, have you lost your taste for it?”
Fin thought about being honest – that his sole intention was to get a train to Dublin and leave this place behind him – but he doubted any of the soldiers stationed here would have much sympathy for him. “I don’t want to kill animals.”
“That’s probably why Sarah gave you the bolt gun. Point to think on, though, they’re just meat now, the weepers are just meat and we are just meat. You kept a level head when you heard the scream. The others ran away when you went towards it. You listened to my instructions in the face of… under stress. Burke told me you’re on trial, so if you come back, it’s either a metal container for a few hours, or more work. I’ve another job in mind for you. Interested?”
“No, not in the slightest, but I don’t want to be trapped in one of those boxes.”
She turned to a soldier coming in from town. “Donal, take over here for me.”
“Ah here, I’m only finished sweeping the perimeter.”
“How are you with digging latrines?”
He gritted his teeth. “I’m far better at watching gates.”
She seemed calm and in control, but Fin noticed the flare of her nostrils and the muscles twitching along her jawline. The stress was getting to all of them, they were as fractured and broken as the rest of the country, but they had to hide behind a cool façade. There was no way the death of Sarah on her watch was not plaguing her. Good. If they can’t keep people alive, then they should at least carry their memories. Fin lost his train of thought when he tried again to remember the names of the people in the apartment across from his.
“Are you okay?”
“Just thought about something from back home. Wondered if I could have done anything differently.”
“Maybe you should have, but nothing to be done about it now, except learn from it. Walk with me, you don’t need to be checked for bites, you won’t be in long enough to turn,” she said.
“Am I going to like it?”
“No, you really won’t.”
The people they passed barely looked up at them, those that did begged for answers. “How many do you think will turn to religion?” Muireann asked. “If people do survive this, they’ll be in a new dark age.”
Fin thought about it for a moment and it seemed to ring through. The future as a whole had seemed so certain, like a road heading into fog. There was a slow progression of technological advancement that could be relied on. The potential for new wonders, in a world so full of them that people hardly noticed any longer. Now everything was uncertain. If they did get beyond this, the world to come was so different that it was unimaginable in his mind.
“To be honest with you, I find it hard to think too far ahead.”
“Good for mindfulness that is, being present in the moment.”
While walking, Fin had more time to see the people inside the grounds. Many without tents curled up beneath the bald canopy of trees, for cover from sporadic rain. The last real sanctuary is the mind, but the walking dead had already claimed that. This was no haven, it was an asylum for the living.
“What I do is a job at the end of the day,” Muireann said. “We’re going to clock out soon, later than most, but that’s what we signed up for. We have one goal and then we go home, once this safe zone is established.”
“Are all these people going with you?” Fin could not help
noticing the eyes watching him, the groups of people that hushed when the soldier walked past, like they were the enemy.
“There’s nowhere better in the country for them than right here. They don’t know it, they’ve not seen what Ireland has become. People two counties over will flock here once we broadcast it is safe. For now, this is all we have. Look at them, they think we are their jailers. Our relief is due in from Dublin on the train later. There are specialists among them, engineers, architects, builders, farmers and teachers. They will turn this place into a fortress and this sorry lot into survivors.”
“Who wants to be that, when they still think they will be returning to their old lives soon?” Fin said.
“What’s keeping you going, then?”
“Guilt.”
Muireann did not pry and Fin wondered what was in her past to make her so observant of these new silences.
“I wasn’t much use in the butcher’s van, what help do you think I can be?”
“You’ll be dealing with the infected. Don’t worry, you won’t be getting close enough to feel sympathy or fear. I can teach you how to use a rifle.” She hefted hers. “Each body you put down is possibly one life saved. Think of it that way, it’s the only thing that helps me. You handled yourself well out there and not knowing many people here is why you’re perfect for this job.”
“What gave it away?”
“Your accent.”
“Where are you heading after here?” Fin asked.
“I’m going to see if I still have a home. If I find my family, I’ll bring them back here. I wasn’t talking shite when I said this place could be something special.”
The prospect of having a gun and knowing how to use it was appealing, stopping the infected before they had a chance to touch you. With the hammer, he had to wait until they were close enough to know if their breath was warm or cold.
Muireann brought him straight through the commotion in front of the house and up the front steps. He held his head down as he passed the butcher vans, but with masks on, nobody was easily recognisable. He was just another body amidst the dwindling living. Thinking of his cats in those ice boxes made his fists tremble. I did the right thing. Right?
