Weep (Book 1): The Irish Epidemic

by Brady, Eoin

  Another shot from ahead stopped people in their tracks, but these were slow and methodical, against the chaos out front.

  George pulled Fin into one of the side corridors. “Not upstairs. If we go up, we’re done for. Get to the back of the house, we’ll break through a window before the infected swarm the building.”

  So many ran up the grand staircase, without the wherewithal to know they were doomed. Shutters barred all the downstairs windows. They passed beneath pictures and paintings of the house and town as it had been in the past. People hid in the library and cowered beneath the long table in the dining room. Fin stopped at a doorway where a soldier was choking down pills. He had a sickening suspicion they were the same ones the captain had given to him.

  As soon as the soldier realised he was being watched, he scrambled for his weapon. Fin dashed away. There was no way to easily discern the living from the infected. He heard hurried footsteps behind him, but after a deafening spray of bullets, the patter of feet stopped, replaced by anguished screams.

  The next room had been converted into a hospital wing. There were not enough bunks for all of them, so most lay on the floor. The weight of what they ran into slowed them considerably. There was no way to help these people. There was nothing with which they could barricade the entrance in time. Most of these people will be weeping before the end of the day. Reverend was at the far end of the room, standing vigil over a sickbed. She raised her pistol and fired one shot into the forehead of a frail woman. She pulled the blanket over the body which still spasmed. A squad of soldiers followed her lead, moving up the beds as quickly as they could.

  They’re killing their own. Fin wanted to turn George away, but it was better he saw this. There was nothing anybody could do to prolong the life of the old woman George had promised to help.

  A soldier pushed past them, but aside from that, he did not say a word or make a sound to give himself away. He walked up close to the captain, but excitement got the better of him. He raised his weapon too soon.

  Sensing the motion, she turned and reacted instinctively. She dove to the side and fired. George and Fin fell back out of the room, hiding until the shooting stopped. The sound of the infected against the main door pushed them on. Somebody started using the heavy machine gun on the stairs. It sounded like a thunderstorm raging in the lobby.

  The captain shakily got to her feet. Her face pale, sweat beaded on her brow. She clamped her hand against her bloody side. Standing over the soldier, she shot him in the head before collapsing onto the bed occupied by the corpse she just made. She let out an anguished roar which drew soldiers faster than the gunfire had.

  George sprinted ahead, inefficiently searching for oxygen tanks.

  “You!” the captain said through shuddering breaths.

  Fin froze.

  “I told you if I caught you around here again I’d shoot you.”

  Weepers were inside the house.

  “Sounds like I won’t have to go to the bother.”

  She was talking to George, who paid her little attention. “Where are the oxygen tanks?”

  People started running through the ward and did not slow when the soldiers aimed their weapons after them. I can’t tell the difference between somebody crying and a weeper. Not wanting to try guess them apart, Fin ran ahead of them.

  George cursed and joined him. Together they tried every window they passed. The shutters were solid, but could be broken with time, something they had little of. They ran through a tight corridor into a reading room at the back of the house. One long window was not boarded up. George picked up a chair by its back and swung it against the glass. It shattered. He raked the chair legs against the bottom of the window to remove the few shards that stuck to the frame.

  There was little time to gauge the scene outside, but from a glance they knew there was room to evade and a chance to escape, neither of which they had inside.

  George turned and held Fin’s face so he knew he was listening. “Don’t break your ankle, we land and go fast. Head for the shore of the lake. Keep the water on one side. Stay on me until we get out of this. I know a place to hide.”

  Fin followed George. He landed hard, letting the dangerous momentum carry over into a graceless fall. Scratched, bruised and sore, he picked George up and ran.

  Despite the burning pain running up his leg, Fin sprinted through the garden. The shots coming from inside the house were drawing most of the infected. There were others lured by the crowds leaving the grounds that ran towards them. Weepers abandoned the house to hunt the living.

  Fin chanced a momentary glance behind. Others had tried to follow them out of the window, but they were overwhelmed. A horde of weepers swept around the building. Once they reached the woods they left the main trail and kept to the shore. They could lose the weepers amongst the trees.

  George nearly ran straight into a tall man that stood still in the middle of the escapees. “What are you doing? The weepers are coming!”

  The man barely looked at him, his eyes were constantly scanning for somebody. He looked past them to continue his search.

  They left him. They did not have to say anything when they cut through the larger crowd. Their sheer panic became instantly infectious. The sound of gunfire and death followed them off the grounds. Flickering street lights marked the way to the hotel. People were crying and panicking, not able to trust those close to them. The enemy could be working its way through the veins of their loved ones.

  Soldiers shouted to be heard, telling people to hurry towards the Quay Hotel. Fin saw more than a few military personnel join the crowd. George grabbed hold of Fin’s jumper and dragged him up the road.

  The hill was littered with bodies. The sound of weeping was close and came from every direction. The small hairs stood up across Fin’s body. George looked through the ground floor windows of an abandoned three-storey building. By the look of it, it had long been derelict.

  “Seems clear,” George said. He hopped over a crumbling wooden fence at the side of the house, kept standing by a wild growth of briars pushing against it in the overgrown yard. A few small trees had taken root. Only cats and other small animals had forged trails through the mess. Fin kept his arms raised. His fear of spiders now seemed ridiculous.

  The lock was broken and the back door held shut with a length of rope tied to the handle and weighed down with a cement block. George shined his torch through the kitchen window. A fine coating of dust blanketed everything. Broken panes let damp in. How long before all the houses in Ireland look like this?

  The staircase had been destroyed. “Didn’t take as long as you’d think to do that,” George said. “Those things aren’t able to climb from what I’ve seen. We’ll be safe upstairs.” He took an improvised grappling hook from his bag and tied it to a length of rope. It clipped around the banister. He threw his backpack up and awkwardly climbed after it. He did a quick sweep of the upper floor before giving Fin the all-clear.

  Fin passed his bag up and made the climb. There was little difference in temperature between upstairs and outside. A few pigeons kept them company. The floor was covered with their filth and feathers.

  Long forgotten construction gear lay covered in grime and unfulfilled promise. They used it as a barricade at the top of the stairs. When there was nothing left to do, George paced by the window overlooking the street. Fin could not catch his breath and put it down to a panic attack. Staying seemed like a terrible idea. He doubted the infected had the brains to spot them; it was the living that worried him now. Light outside made George fall in against the wall. Fin crept to the opposite side. In the house across from them, lamps in the sitting room went on. Shadows danced.

  “At least we still have power,” George said. The sight of others calmed him. The cold glow created gaunt shadows in the street.

  “Do you think she’s dead?” Fin asked.

  “I’m no doctor, but getting shot can’t be good for your health.”

  “She knew yo
u.”

  George, pointedly, stared out the window. “I thought she was talking to you. Woman got shot. Mind might have gone. I say we wait here until it’s light enough to see what’s left of the camp.”

  “We are not risking our lives to go back for an oxygen tank.”

  “I was thinking about what we could do for the survivors – if there are any,” George said.

  The sound of gunfire and minor explosive ordnance was incessant. There could only have been so much ammunition shipped in before the walls failed, but more than enough to deal with the infected this far away from major cities. The soldiers just needed to survive long enough to use all of the bullets.

  “It was a stupid place to try to fortify,” George said. “Too much land to guard. Too few people and so many weak points. Sure, if the same amount of military were trying to keep people from breaking into a concert there, they’d still have bother. What happened? Was it the infected on the train from Dublin? All those weepers, they didn’t all come from the capital, those are locals. Can you imagine the terror they must have felt? Trapped behind the walls they thought would protect them?” He wiped his eyes. “I grew up with them.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” Fin said.

  “I’ve been studying the maps. The islands would be brilliant if nobody else knew about them. I say we head down to Connemara, disappear into the highlands there. Loughs for fish, shellfish and salmon farms in Killary Fjord. Find a house and renovate the attic. Me, you and Rebecca. We could get a car going and head out the old roads into the countryside. We just need to look out for each other. After we do something for that old woman. I gave my word and it’s the last time I ever will, so I may as well honour it.”

  “I need to get home, George. Why not come with me? We wait out the worst of it and then head east. You’re more than welcome there. More food, more people.”

  “You’ll never make it, mate. There’s too many people to eat the food and then too many people to try to eat you. Your family is safe where they are. Getting yourself killed to see them is insane. All we can do is survive. We have to be selfish. Don’t go yet. Just wait it out here.”

  A momentary dip in the light drew their attention to the house across the road. Infected mauled the windows. They were drawn to the light like moths. The residents put out the lamps too late. The house was old, and the window broke. The door gave under the weight of so many.

  “They’ll go upstairs and wait them out,” Fin said.

  “You’re talking about them as if they had any sense. If that were the case, they wouldn’t have turned the light on in the first place. Nobody can easily stomach the dark at the moment, but we have to change if we are to survive.”

  “How can we beat such a thing?” Fin asked.

  “Time, I suppose. We just give them time to rot away to nothing.”

  They moved away from the window. “Right, should we come up with a plan then so?” Fin said.

  Defeated, George agreed.

  33

  Smile

  The gunfire stopped in the early morning. Its absence left an unsettling silence. Neither Fin nor George thought it was because the soldiers had euthanised all of the infected.

  “Do you think they were overrun?” Fin drank sparingly from his bottle of water. He had not felt the urge to eat for days now, but each morning he chewed and swallowed enough to keep his energy up. He was living off vitamin tablets, caffeine and adrenaline.

  George did not answer. Weepers inside the house across the road were still active, their voices low and hoarse from overuse. That must mean the survivors got upstairs to safety. The disturbance kept infected on the street. Fin suggested luring them into their house and using the height advantage to smash in their skulls. George vetoed the plan, saying they did not have the time or the resources for something like that. Especially not if the camp had fallen.

  They emptied their packs of all but the bare essentials. The hammers they kept in their hands. Before leaving the house, George covered the sleeves of his jacket in two layers of duct tape, only leaving the joint at his elbows clear for maneuverability. “If it comes to it, let them gnaw on this while you teach them some manners with the hammer.”

  Fin took the roll from George and started taping his own sleeves. “Does it stop their teeth?”

  “I haven’t tested it. Show me your arm.” George knelt and bit into Fins sleeve.

  Fin winced. Despite George’s best efforts, when Fin rolled up his sleeve, there was not even an indent of teeth on his skin.

  George spat on the floor. “That’s a decent jacket. It’s thick enough alone to keep them from breaking the skin. People are prone to forgetting that these are just humans. Not monsters.”

  They practiced some rudimentary emergency hand signals. Neither of them wanted to speak once they were out in the open.

  “What are you laughing at?” George asked.

  “Seems a bit redundant,” Fin said. “If you see me running, you can probably guess that it’s likely a good idea if you start running too.”

  “What if I want you to run a different way to distract them from me?” George winked.

  They checked everything twice. Fin added a few extra knots to his shoe laces to ensure they would not come undone. Nerves soured his stomach, what little he had eaten gurgled uneasily. Eventually, there was nothing left to do but leave. Thinking this may be their last moment of peace for a while, Fin wondered what to say. George stopped any possible conversation by dropping a stone over the bannister.

  They waited for noise, but no infected had gotten inside. Before George could descend, Fin grabbed him awkwardly and hugged him. George went rigid.

  “Would you ever go away.” George relaxed and did not step out of the embrace. “Don’t start acting soft. You had plenty of time to hug me in the loft, don’t start just before we do something stupid. Makes me doubt it.” When they parted, George squeezed Fin’s shoulder. “We’ll be okay.”

  Fin went down first. Trying to open the front door would make too much noise, so they went out through the overrun garden. There was only light enough to make out silhouettes. None of the infected on the street were focused on their house. George pulled a dead plant out of a small ceramic flower pot. Old, bone-white roots clung to barren soil. George took a few long slow breaths before covering his face with his mask. Fin did the same. George reached his arm back and threw the pot far over the wall, down the road towards town.

  The shattered pot drew fresh laments from the infected. Weepers poured out from the house across the road. In the gloom, there was no discernable target. They barrelled into a zombie, piling on top of it. Fin doubted even one of those creatures could get up again after such a vicious attack. Chaos erupted. Now only the slower shuffling ones blocked their path to the pier. They waited a few moments more for those to pass.

  Together, they clambered over the mouldering fence. There was little time for doubt on the street. They ran as quietly as possible down the hill. The gates to Westport House were locked. As soon as they walked by a coffee shop, the sound of agitated weeping started up behind them. The infected tripped over broken class, rousing others.

  Caution forsaken, they sprinted towards the river. Bodies lay on the road. It all seemed like a horrible prank to Fin, as if these people were trying to stifle laughter. It did not seem real. How could so many die in Ireland? There was no sign of the living. The doors to the hotel were closed tight. The gates held and none of the windows were broken. There are survivors. Other weepers joined the chorus, dashing out from a block of apartments.

  Not knowing whether the tide was in or out, they reached the pier’s edge and launched themselves into the air. The mudflats were covered with enough water to soften the landing. George splashed down ahead of him. The shock of the cold was like a vice, squeezing the air from Fin’s lungs. While under the water, he heard the thunderous explosion of bubbles, the impact of several other bodies entering the river. He kicked out, trying to gain purchase. Som
ething touched him and he lashed out viciously, not knowing whether it was George or a zombie.

  “Come on!” George called to him the moment he surfaced.

  Fin heard more bodies splashing into the river. All along the quay, dozens of them just ran to the edge and fell in. His waterlogged shoes made it difficult to swim, but he made for the deep middle of the river.

  “Did they get you?” George spluttered.

  Fin had no clue whether he had been infected, he was so on edge that he could have been bitten and not know it. He shook his head, giving a best estimate.

  George’s teeth chattered. “Let’s get the board and get out of here.”

  Fin sank knee-deep into the silt on the opposite shore. He slid the board out to George and joined him in deep water. A single gunshot echoed from the grounds of Westport House. Weeping eerily filled the woods and steadily died away.

  Passing the hotel, they saw lights on in several rooms.

  Back at their safehouse, they did a quick sweep of the grounds for infected. In the loft, George’s legs went out from under him. He lay on the ground gasping. His clothes squelched, wetting the carpet. Fin checked his arms and legs for bites. He was covered with dark bruises, but the skin was not broken.

  “Any chance of that hug now?” George asked.

  Fin smiled. “The moment’s gone. There are people still alive in the camp. You heard the shot.” Fin said.