by Brady, Eoin
“They must have gotten out of the hotel. We can’t stop now. We’ll thin the herd and leave in the morning,” Burke said.
Fin looked at the dwindling pile of ammunition and realised that they would eventually have to fight their way out with hammers, knives and hands.
“Why not just stop firing now?” George pushed an oncoming infected back down with the end of a sweeping brush. “Stay quiet and wait them out.”
“I would if we had the time, but we don’t. I’ve seen them lie down and wait in place for days until stirred. The thunder might draw them off but we can’t chance it. If we clear enough of them and keep the rest in the house, we could try for the bay. The swans will capsize in this weather. How far is this boat you mentioned, Aidan?”
“Too far with so many of them and I’ve no idea if it works or not,” the soldier said.
It did not take long for them to discover they were thoroughly trapped. There was no easy way to get out of the house, besides the stairs. The torch batteries failed just before morning. The soldiers took it in turns to guard the stairs.
Burke’s head lolled on his chest. It was a cold, miserable night and the morning held little promise of improvement. The rain was light and feathery. Reverend coughed and winced at the pain it caused. The noise made the others flinch. “Where’s my pistol?” Her voice was hoarse.
Burke handed it to her. “If you’re thinking about using it on yourself, you may want to wait, we’re surrounded.”
She inspected the magazine. “What are we down to now?”
“Running on fumes, curses, knives and a hammer,” Burke said.
“Just make sure to leave me a bullet.”
The children shaded the windows with sheets. Mattresses slouched against walls, they hid behind them. Many of the thicker blankets were on Reverend. Fin found a few bath towels that would keep the worst of the chill off him. Infected had not made an attempt on the stairs for nearly an hour. He lay down in the bathtub. When he closed his eyes, he saw infected faces made horrid by torchlight. The hallway beneath him was choked with bodies.
Fin gripped the side of the tub and grit his teeth. The house was contaminated by the weeping virus. They had enough food for another day, but not enough that any of them would feel full. It felt like he barely closed his eyes before he was roused by Rebecca.
“We’re leaving,” she said. “There’s a fog so thick you’d swear we were buried by an avalanche.”
“Infected?”
“I can’t see to count, but they don’t disappear when the sun comes up, so assume so. If we can’t see them, they’ll have the same difficulty.”
“What about the children? There’s no way the lot of us can get to the coast without attracting attention,” Fin said.
“They’re staying with Reverend. We’ll get the boat and come back for them.”
Fin could only imagine the fear they would experience when they heard they would be left behind. What if something happens to us? They’ll starve in a dark attic, surrounded by infected.
“How has George been?” Fin asked.
“He hasn’t slept. He’s talking about going out to that sick woman’s house when we get the boat on the water. Forgive me for saying it, but I kind of hope she didn’t make it.”
“We can’t let him go by himself.” Fin rubbed his eyes, he wasn’t asleep long enough for crust to form.
Everyone was on edge. Rev went paler still when she saw the sheer number of infected that had been put down during the night.
“If I had the time I’d set fire to the place,” Burke said.
“That sentiment is probably shared by most countries about Ireland right now,” Reverend said.
The children did not react as Fin thought they would. They were quiet and despondent, nearly catatonic, when left alone.
Burke went down first to secure the ground floor. There was the sound of a brief struggle in the kitchen before he returned. He wiped his knife on the shirt of a dead infected. “Too many out the back,” he whispered to Aidan. “Use the front door.”
Fin carefully stepped over the gore and the lifeless limbs, half expecting those sightless eyes to turn on him. He could hear his heart beating in his ears as he tried to make as little noise as possible. Aidan opened the door slowly, it creaked. He had to use both hands to stop the weight of a body leaning on the other side from pushing it open too fast. The body slid against the window, dislodging what little glass remained. A large bloody shard wobbled like a loose tooth and fell towards the tiles. Instinctively, Aidan put the side of his foot against the door to stop it from opening further and snatched the shard before it shattered. He let out a sharp hiss and put the glass down gently. Fresh drops of blood fell to the ground below his hand.
Fin just had enough time to see the small cut on the side of Aidan’s finger, before the other soldiers were on him. One held him tightly, while Burke took a small, clean knife out of his jacket.
“Don’t worry, I haven’t used this yet,” he said before he removed Aidan’s finger near the knuckle. The cut was clean and smooth, like he was chopping a vegetable.
Aidan grimaced and shook. He barely made a sound. Another soldier readied a medkit.
“Bring him back upstairs and deal with him,” Burke said.
Outside, visibility was reduced to a few feet in front of the house. Fin, George and Rebecca walked closely behind Burke. He set the pace. Unable to see, the infected just stood still, waiting for purpose. Fin felt like a ship at sea without a lighttower. From here on out, there was no talking. He put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. She did the same to George. They made for the cove in silence. Behind them, the house was swallowed by the fog.
The morning was crisp and cold. Tall grass lay flat, beaten down by the heavy rain. Infected made noise as they stumbled blindly through the fog. Some of the bodies they passed had been mauled by weepers. If we live long enough, they might just kill themselves off.
Burke stopped abruptly. Fin nearly bumped into Rebecca. A weeper walked across their path, head leaning to one side, almost resting on its shoulder. It was hard not to think it was listening. Something knocked into the side of the building and it hurried towards the sound. A rain-soaked jumper hung limp down to its knees. Stale makeup ran down its face.
They continued, passing infected on either side. The undead stood still, swaying in the breeze. Twice they had to detour around one that was lying down, though Fin expected those were weepers that were entering the slower stage of the infection. They appeared as dark shadows maring the dull white fog, like a growing stain. Burke took them over rocks to avoid what turned out to be a tree. The growing sound of waves made them careless.
George stepped on a plastic bottle. The crunch drew an immediate response. One of the shadows closest to him lunged blindly. George stepped back, grabbed its arm and swung it in an arc. The infected lost balance and landed hard. Weeping started and others around them converged on the noise. Burke turned on a battery operated radio and threw it as far from their position as he could. Then he ran without saying a word.
The crackling sound of the government warning and advice over the radio seemed too loud in the field of undead. They swarmed the radio from every direction. Burke ducked and weaved between them. Fin lost him in the fog, unable to tell which outline belonged to him amongst the weepers. He lost his grip on Rebecca’s shoulder. Fin thought she had stopped ahead for him, but it was a weeper. He skirted around it, its features becoming crisp enough for him to see its eyes suddenly swivel and lock onto him, all while the radio gave advice on how best to avoid the sick.
The shoreline was overrun. Fin raced down the sand and barged through a group of them. They’re drawn by the sound of the waves. They followed him out into the painfully cold water.
The swans had survived the night. Fin pulled himself on board with numb hands. He started bailing out the rainwater that had collected in the bilge. The infected lined the shore, chasing seabirds. It was rare to see one alone. Burke
was the first to emerge from the vapour; he climbed over the slippery rocks that the infected were unable to traverse. Rebecca followed behind him. George had run straight into the bay, as Fin had.
“Anyone infected?” George asked when everyone had gotten onboard.
Rebecca and Fin vigorously shook their heads, conscious of Burke’s knife that was still wet with Aidan’s blood. Burke ignored them and started working the pedals. They used one boat, a paddle board in tow.
The sun had passed its zenith by the time they pulled in close to the shore where the scout had marked the boat.
It was a large fishing boat on a trailer with deflated tyres. It was covered in a protective tarp that was dotted with mouldering autumn leaves. Nestled at the back of the house, it would have been invisible from the road, which was little more than a country lane. A quick sweep of the house brought up nothing. George and Fin searched for dry clothes and food. Fin took a sharp kitchen knife from the drawer; a scabbard protected the narrow, bendy blade. He preferred the crudeness of the hammer. With a knife he could not let his anger control him, precision was required.
George tore up the staircase, ripping out the worn carpet. Fin watched for signs of infected, while Burke checked out the boat. “Good walls around the property. We can block up the road no problem,” Fin said. He wore stolen clothes from the house, they smelled of disuse, but he was happy to be out of his wet gear.
“Do you need me for anything else?” George asked Burke. “Noreen does not live far from here. If that wave of infected have not reached her yet, then it won’t be long.”
Burke handed him his pistol. “I’ve work to do on this before I put it on the water. Do what you have to do and get back fast. I won’t wait for any of you.”
“Will you be okay on your own?” Fin asked.
“Jeep in the garage still works. The gates will hold long enough for me to get it into the bay.”
“You don’t have to come,” George said as Rebecca put her backpack on.
“Shut up, let’s go.”
Fin clasped the suicide pill packet in his pocket. Last one.
38
Sleep Softly and Dream of Nothing
The wind picked up, churning the sea and pitching high waves against the rocky shore. Falling hailstones went from a small annoyance to a brutal, bruising hindrance, landing with little thuds against the frozen earth. Happy to leave the swan behind, they continued by foot to save time. Fin put his hood up without thinking. The crackle of the fabric as he moved, and the sound of hail against it, muffled the other sounds in his surroundings. He pulled it off and looked behind. In his imagination, infected had flanked them. The biting hail was preferable to the alternative.
It felt good to be back to just the three of them. Fin wondered how their lives would be had they ignored the rest of the world. Hold up in their safehouse, conserve their food and leave only when they needed to. Living in close confinement with George and Rebecca was an easy thing, though he imagined they would all wear on each others nerves in time. Such thoughts no longer warmed him. Until recently he could have ignored the world, but not any longer, not when he experienced firsthand the suffering endured by survivors. The world abandoned us, we cannot abandon each other.
They walked through fields that were old and long forgotten. They passed the bones of a few old buildings. Trees and briars grew strong in the shelter of their walls, rain nourished their roots without roofs. “You never consider how hard people had it in the past until you see how they lived,” Rebecca said.
“What are you talking about?” George said. “That right there would go for a quarter of a million on the Dublin property market. We’re not far now.”
Two fields and a small stream later, George carefully climbed over a crumbling, dry-stone wall into a messy garden. At the back of the house, flower pots were stacked like school chairs over summer, waiting for new pupils. Bags of compost were heaped alongside turf and logs in the coal bunker. A small cottage stood near the shore. Ancient, leafless trees sheltered it from the worst of the wind. An old glasshouse had been turned into a conservatory at the side of the building. The panels were glazed with aged moss. Nothing grew there now, pots and trays of patient soil slumbered until spring. A well-cushioned armchair was placed where it would receive the most sun and the occupant could watch over a verdant kingdom.
The road to the house was barricaded with cars and an old coal truck parked sideways. Sandbags were placed beneath it to block the gap. The dead would be funnelled along another road.
Somebody took great care before leaving this woman. “George, did she say what happened to her family?” Fin asked.
“They left her with food and what comfort they could. Blocked the road and went looking for help – an ambulance or oxygen tanks from hospitals. Nobody came back. I don’t expect they will, either.”
“Not by choice,” Rebecca said. “Look at the effort they went to, to protect her.”
George nodded and turned away to check for infected. “I’d love to know what happened to them. Are they wandering around as weepers? Have they died? Or did they manage to get out somehow?
“No point in worrying about it now,” Fin said softly. “When this is over, we can search for the lost.”
“Easy for you to say. Your family are alive and well. Rebecca and I…” He seemed to deflate. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be,” Fin said. “The only thing keeping me going right now is knowing that they’re okay. I want to be back with them more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. If I didn’t know…”
“To do all this and not come back. Why leave in the first place? It seems sound enough here. Better even than our safehouse,” Rebecca said.
George shrugged. “I bet you anything there were people on the islands that left the safety there, everybody thinks sanctuary is where they’re not. They left because they were scared and wanted to do something to soothe that anxious feeling. You know how a funeral is for the living and not the dead. Perhaps this small gesture was for them, rather than her. Made it easier for them to leave.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Rebecca asked, making them all stop. So far none of them had spoken about what was to be done now that they would get no help from the camp.
“What we can. What they couldn’t,” Fin said. He let go of the tablet in his pocket in case heat from his hand denatured it. George knocked on the back door before entering. He wiped his feet on a bristly welcome mat. Empty milk bottles on the doorstep waited for a milkman who would never come. Fin had a surreal feeling when he cleaned the muck from his own boots. We’re here to kill her and he’s worried about threading dirt into her home.
The smell hit him immediately; it was stale, made up from the smoke of hundreds of cigarettes and countless meals prepared so regularly over the years that they held the bricks of the building together. It smelled like the home of a grandparent. A clock that would give the hearing-abled a migraine kept a doleful count of things. It stood sentinel over the kitchen, keeping time to the way things were before.
A sugar bowl on the table was left open for easy access during tea chats. The bread bin was full of biscuit packets, nourishment should the chats run into dinnertime. That is how it was in his own grandmother’s house, before she was moved to the retirement home. I can’t do this. The fridge was covered in magnets from around the world, souvenirs from children and grandchildren. The crayon drawings were on crisp white paper, possibly from great-grandchildren. Photographs covered every inch of wall space, depicting little moments. Most were inconsequential, given worth and cherished for the memories they held. Family gatherings where she and her husband were at the centre. There were plenty of newer ones wherein they were slowly pushed to the edge, their run done now, to watch others take the torch. Crazy how life works. From family weddings to christenings, they moved further down the line. Eventually there were pictures without her husband. Deceased, Fin guessed by how young she looked in the ones when he was ar
ound.
Memories, fragments of community during times of isolation. I should have visited my family more when I had the chance. It feels like it’s too late. Why does it feel like that? Never one to give much heed to premonitions or odd feelings, he still found it difficult to shake this one. He put it down to a general sense of dread with the situation.
George went through to the sitting room. Floor-to-ceiling brown curtains stretched most of the way across one wall, hiding the world outside. A transparent tube snaked across the luscious cream carpet and disappeared beneath a door to the bedrooms. A low machine hum could be heard, like a fridge on its last legs. Two fangs opened out from the tube and were stuck in the old woman's nose.
Cocooned in a quilted blanket, she lay comfortably in an ancient chair. The cushions were dimpled from use and propped her up. Her legs rested on a poof. A book lay open on her lap. She was only a quarter of the way through it. How many books can we read in a lifetime? Fin could not imagine having to choose a last one. Then again, when do people ever pick up toothpaste at the store and think that it will not be finished? Is that what shopping after eighty is like?
Purple veins stood out on her blotchy skin. It’s not a bad place to die, in a room full of memories, in the comfort of your home. Many without the choice would envy her.
George knelt and placed a hand tenderly on her arm. “Noreen?”
For a moment, Fin was hopeful that she had passed, but her yellowing, red-rimmed eyes opened behind thick glasses. She stirred with an “Oh”, followed by a fit of coughing.
“I’ll get you some water,” George said and quickly left the room.
“You startled the life out of me,” she said.
If only it were that easy. He rebuked himself for that.
“I’m Rebecca and this is Fin. George mentioned you’re having difficulty.”
She took one look at their appearance and gave them a queer look. They had not bothered to take off their packs. Only now did Fin notice how odd they must look to her; shell-shocked and dishevelled, in clothes that did not fit them.
