by Wood, J N
Jack was first up onto his feet, his chair skidding away from him. I followed him up and looked out through the wire mesh fixed to the outside of the window. Two women were disappearing into the hole we’d all clambered out of in the early hours of the morning.
Shannon shrugged her shoulders. ‘Shift change?’
About an hour later, Elliot and Martin pulled themselves out of the hole.
Not long after we’d seen the two women disappear, I wandered outside to wait. Jack, Shannon, Michael and Ali soon joined me.
Upon seeing us, Elliot waved and told us to stay near to the school, and not to enter the tennis courts. They both walked over to us and stopped a few feet away.
Elliot hooked a thumb towards the sheriff’s shipping container. ‘Don’t want him seeing us get too close while you’re in quarantine. Otherwise he’ll make us join you. So let’s just keep it at this distance. Okay?’
Ali pointed at Martin. ‘But you frisked us this morning.’
Elliot smiled and held his hands up. ‘True, but the sheriff doesn’t know we weren’t wearing the full protective clothing, the gloves and the masks. Does he?’ He gave the container a furtive glance. ‘Let’s keep that between us yeah?’ he said, tapping the side of his nose with his finger.
‘So is that your shift over then?’ Michael asked.
‘Yeah. We’re heading to the pub for a few,’ Martin replied. ‘It’s over by the water. You should pay it a visit once you’re settled into the camp. It’s called Pea’s Place, can’t miss it.’
‘How does all this work?’ Shannon asked. ‘I’m assuming money is no good?’
‘Canadian dollars are still good for trading,’ Elliot said, ‘If you have any. The ATMs aren’t working. We have to work for credits now.’ He put his hand in his pocket and came out with a playing card between his thumb and forefinger. ‘This is a credit now, believe it or not. This is how you get fed. Very hard to forge one of these.’
‘What if I just found a pack of cards?’ I asked.
‘Then you’ve won the jackpot, and I’m your new best friend,’ Martin said.
‘What? Seriously?’ I said. ‘That’s fucking ridiculous.’
Shit, my cards are in my bag, the bag I left on the bus.
Elliot showed me the queen of diamonds in his hand. ‘It’s gotta be signed by one of twelve people, who kind of run the camp.’ He leaned in and winked. ‘Hard to make a playing card, but quite easy to forge the signatures.’
‘How do you buy beers then?’ I asked. ‘With the playing card system?’
Elliot screwed up his face. ‘That’s a bit more complicated. Trade, favours, information, Canadian dollars, if you have any.’
What the fuck does that mean? That’s very helpful.
‘Who are these twelve people?’ Ali asked. ‘Is it all policed by the sheriff?’
Elliot laughed. ‘It’s not policed at all, well, I suppose it’s kind of self-policed. The sheriff is just in charge of people coming into the camp. He did have a lot more people working for him, when there were more refugees coming in.’
‘The twelve people?’ Ali reminded him.
‘Yes. There are twelve work groups with twelve bosses. But like I said, the sheriff isn’t the boss of anyone no more.’ He put the playing card back into his pocket, and then lifted his hands up with his fingers and thumbs spread out. ‘We’ve got the Fencers. Medical. Zombie Patrol. Erm…Caterers.’ He was counting them off with his fingers as he said each one. ‘Shepherding,’ he said, pointing at himself, and then at Martin. ‘Fishing. Plumbers, which is one of the most important jobs in here. Then there’s Retail, Border Control, that’s the sheriff, and then…there…is…Martin, what are the last two?’ The thumb and forefinger on his right hand sprung back up.
‘Scavengers and Cleaners,’ Martin replied.
The thumb and finger curled back into Elliot’s fist. ‘And that’s it,’ he said.
‘Why does the sheriff do it?’ Jack asked. ‘Surely he should be in the camp doing sheriff stuff? Where is he from?’
‘He’s from here, Blaine,’ Elliot said. ‘I think he only had a couple of deputies working for him before the fall. They probably got into Canada straight away, before the wall went up. He wouldn’t be able to cope with the amount of people in there now. I think he’s got some kind of deal with the Canadians. When you get out of here,’ he said, pointing to the school behind us. ‘He’ll take all your details. Name, age, etc. He’s not doing that for his own weird personal records. They asked him to do it, in exchange for something. Just what I think anyway.’
‘And that’s what Pea told you,’ Martin said.
Elliot looked to his partner. ‘He didn’t tell me all of that, just some of it.’
‘Why didn’t he follow his deputies into Canada?’ Shannon asked.
Elliot turned to gaze at the container. ‘Waiting for somebody, wife, kid, parents, I don’t know. He’s the quiet type, doesn’t like to divulge too much information about himself.’
Martin very loudly cleared his throat, causing Elliot to flinch and turn back to look at him.
‘Beer,’ Martin said under his breath.
Elliot smiled at us. ‘Yes, so…we’ll see you on the other side.’
Martin gave us a brief wave, before they both turned and headed towards the padlocked gate in the corner of the tennis courts. Martin murmured something into his radio as they walked. Just as they reached the gate, the door on the container swung open, and the sheriff emerged from inside.
‘Hey, Sheriff McCallany,’ Jack called out.
The sheriff quickly raised his finger to his lips, and mouthed the word, ‘Quiet.’ He then lowered his hand and tapped his watch with the same finger. ‘As soon as you get out,’ he softly said.
Jack looked at his watch and said, ‘Shite,’ before setting off towards the school.
Michael sighed and looked to his wife. ‘Sounds like it might be like the wild west in there.’
‘At least they’ve got different work groups organised,’ she replied. ‘It won’t be complete chaos.’
We followed Jack and headed back inside.
‘I hope there’s more than one pub. One pub!’ I exclaimed. ‘Can’t be one pub for all those people. It’s gonna be fucking heaving.’
Ali laughed. ‘That’s your biggest worry at the moment?’
‘Well, one of them.’
I suppose the right thing would be to ask her how she’s doing.
‘Hey Ali,’ I called out to her back. She turned to look at me, stopping halfway to the door. I waited until Jack, Michael and Shannon had gone back inside. ‘How are you all doing? The last couple of days have been fucking terrible.’
She raised her hands, saying, 'No. Stop right there please. Thanks for asking Chris, but just no. I’m not going to talk about it until me and my family are definitely safe. If I went over it all now, I think I would just crumble.’
‘Okay, that’s fair enough.’
Thank fuck for that.
‘Thank you for asking though.’
‘No problem.’
‘You looking forward to going to the pub?’ she asked. ‘Even if it is going to be, what did you say, heaving?’
‘Yeah, I wouldn’t say no to a pint. How much will a beer cost? How many credits do you get per hour, at whatever job I might get? What if I don’t get a job? Do I just starve to death?’
‘All reasonable questions,’ Ali replied, smiling. ‘I have no idea.’
‘They were rhetorical. I didn’t actually expect you to know the answers.’
‘We’ll soon find out everything,’ she said.
We had been sat in our room for what felt like days, when there was a knock on the door in the corner. I think we all must have tried the handle of that door in the time we’d been there. It must have been locked from the other side.
After a few seconds of just staring at each other, Michael walked over to the corner. ‘Hello?’ he timidly called out.
‘It’s
McCallany. Please step away from the door. I’m just going to roll in your food and then leave you to it.’
Michael took three or four steps backwards. ‘Okay, go ahead Sheriff.’
The sound of keys jangling and being inserted into the keyhole made everyone sit up in anticipation. The door slowly creaked open. An old fashioned dessert trolley rolled into the room on squeaky wheels. The sheriff appeared behind it, pushing the trolley through.
Once it had cleared the door, he stopped. ‘Dinner is served ladies and gentlemen.’ He suddenly pointed at Jack. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask.’
I followed the sheriff’s gaze to see Jack, his mouth open, as if he was about to speak.
‘Bon appetit,’ the sheriff said, before grabbing the door handle and pulling it closed. The keys jangled again as he locked it.
‘What have you done to him?’ I asked Jack.
Jack raised his palms to the ceiling. ‘Nothing.’
‘You must have done something,’ Sandra said.
‘I think it might be something to do with you shouting at his container this morning,’ Ali said. ‘Do you not think Jack?’
‘I was just calling his name,’ Jack replied. ‘Just trying to get his attention. And there was more waving than shouting.’
‘Fuck’s sake Jack,’ I said. ‘He has to sleep as well. Best be careful. We don’t know him. He might make it difficult for you to check the list if you piss him off.’
‘Yeah, yeah, alright. They should have told us they don’t like shouting around here at the very beginning,’ Jack said, as he made his way to the food trolley.
‘We’ve got fish and potatoes,’ Michael said, as he leaned over the food. He took in a deep breath through his nose. ‘Looks like tuna steaks. We’ll have to slice the portions in half, but they smell delicious.’
It also tasted delicious. We all sat at one of the long tables in the middle of the room. Nobody was talking, all far too busy eating. I looked around at the paper plates in front of everyone, hoping that someone might be a vegetarian or a vegan, but there was very little fish left.
No chance of an extra portion.
‘They wouldn’t feed us this if we were their prisoners Gee,’ Michael said.
Gee responded by turning the corners of mouth down and shrugging his shoulders, before placing a butter soaked potato into his mouth.
‘What job do you think they’ll give you Chris?’ Ali asked.
‘No idea. I’ve never been fishing. I reckon I could throw some scraps of metal at the outer fence. I’ll probably be in the Zombie Patrol.’
Jack laughed. ‘Why, because you’re such a badass?’
‘A badass? You’re from Norwich Jack. You’re not allowed to say that out loud. And no, not because I think I’m a badass. I can’t do anything else. I doubt there’s much call for a graphic designer around here.’
‘You could make them some new signs,’ Shannon suggested. ‘Replace the ones leading to Blaine.’
‘That’s true,’ I said.
‘What did you do Jack?’ Sandra asked.
‘Tax law,’ he quickly responded. ‘Very boring. Honestly, too boring to talk about.’
Sandra actually perked up a bit. ‘I was in law school before the kids came along. I was always planning to go back and finish at some point. Where did you work?’
Jack sipped on his glass of water. ‘Google.’
Sandra’s eyes lit up. ‘Wow, Google. That must have been exciting?’
‘Nope. It doesn’t matter where you work when it comes to tax. I’m sure it was exciting for the creative people, but tax is tax.’
Michael laughed. ‘You enjoyed it then?’
Jack shrugged. ‘The money was very good, and I got to travel a bit. It obviously allowed me to move to America…for a while.’
Sandra turned her attention to Michael and Shannon. ‘How about you two?’
A grin spread across my face, waiting to see everyone’s reaction to Shannon explaining what she did for a living.
‘High school math teacher,’ Michael said, pointing at himself. He beamed at Shannon. ‘And my wife is a much respected doctor of–.’
Shannon placed a hand on her husband’s arm, interrupting him. ‘When we get into the camp, maybe not mention I’m a doctor. People always immediately think medical and expect things from me, especially at the moment.’
Michael smiled back at his wife. ‘Okay darling.’
Shannon looked to Sandra. ‘I mostly did research, taught a little as well.’
‘It’s a lot more complicated than that,’ I added.
‘Gee, what job do you think they’ll give you?’ Jack asked him.
‘Do not know,’ he shrugged. ‘I was janitor in building we live in here. Before, in Lithuania, I was in army.’
‘Really?’ I asked, but then thought about it for a couple of seconds. ‘Actually that doesn’t surprise me at all. How long were you in the army?’
‘Twelve years. I go in when eighteen. It was how you say? Erm…when have to go in?’
‘National service?’ Jack offered.
Gee furrowed his brow. ‘No, that is not it. When, at eighteen the government make you join army, just for one year, but I stay for twelve.’
‘Yeah I think that is called national service,’ I said.
Gee thought about it for a few moments, before saying, ‘No, do not think so.’
‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘What did you do in the army?’
‘At the end I train new soldiers. I build my own house from being in army.’
‘They taught you how to build a house?’ Jack asked.
‘No, army was shit. I steal all building supplies from army stores, and build house for my wife and…’ He trailed off and lifted his drink to his mouth.
Again, I noticed Michael and Shannon exchange glances.
Maybe they know what happened to Gee’s wife?
‘Theo was going to graduate from high school this year,’ Sandra said. ‘How about you Pete? What do you do?’
Pete shot his cousin an annoyed glare. ‘I’m taking some time out thank you Sandra. Just trying to work out my options. I guess most of those options have been taken away from me now.’
‘What about you Ali?’ I asked. ‘Bounty hunter? Cop? Ninja?’
She smiled. ‘Yes, I’m a ninja. Been doing that professionally for the last five years.’ She performed a pretend karate chop on Max. He gave her a very adult looking, polite smile, and continued eating his food. ‘I decided if people qualified for loans. More boring stuff, and completely uncalled for in the zombie apocalypse.’
‘I’m sure people will still want loans,’ Shannon said.
‘I don’t want to go back to it,’ Ali sighed. ‘Time for my new life I think.’
After we’d eaten, we loaded the trolley back up with our dirty dishes and left it by the locked door. It wasn’t long before Sandra and Pete put the kids to bed. After being very politely shushed by Sandra for the third time, we decided to get an early night. The temperature outside had dropped, so nobody wanted to sit outside and talk anyway.
I was genuinely excited as I lay on my bottom bunk, staring up at the underside of a mattress. Combining the excitement with the fact I hadn’t been sleeping at night for a while, meant I was awake in the darkness for hours.
When I woke up it would be time to go into the camp. One step closer to Canada, and then…
What am I thinking? How the fuck am I gonna get back to Joanne?
For a long time, that one thought seemed to constantly go around and around in my head.
She must think I’m dead. Nope, can’t worry about that now. One step at a time, one step at an annoyingly slow fucking time.
DAY EIGHTEEN
Chapter 9: Gayter
An alarm was going off. In my sleep induced confusion, I leaned out of bed and fumbled around, first looking for my phone on my bedside cabinet, and then searching the floor. The alarm suddenly stopped.
Pete saying, ‘Sorry,’
brought me back to my senses, reminding me where I was.
I tried to open my eyes, just about managing to get my left one open. My right eye was not cooperating. People around me were beginning to stir.
‘What time is it?’ I asked, trying to aim it in the direction I thought Pete had been sleeping.
‘Five thirty,’ he whispered.
I must have only been asleep for a couple of hours.
Half an hour until we’re in the camp. Might as well get up then.
I hope Beth is in there.
We shared out, and ate what were left of the pastries. We took turns using the toilets, and then crowded around the locked gate we’d seen Elliot and Martin use the day before. We had nothing to gather up apart from a few weapons, so it didn’t take us long to get ready.
‘What time is it Pete?’ Jack asked.
Pete moaned and looked at his watch. ‘It’s three minutes after the last time you asked me, so it’s seven minutes to six.’
‘Where’s your watch?’ I asked Jack.
He rolled up his sleeve, showing me his watch.
‘Why are you asking me all the time?’ Pete asked him.
‘Just making sure my watch is correct.’
One of the doors to the container swung open, and out staggered the sheriff, tripping over the lip of the doorway and stumbling forwards a few paces.
I leaned in towards Jack. ‘He looks shitfaced.’
‘Morning campers,’ the sheriff said, unhooking a bunch of keys from his belt.
Jack and I exchanged bemused glances.
‘Was that from Hi-de-Hi?’ Jack asked.
I shrugged. ‘Was it on TV over here?’ I asked him.
Jack shrugged, saying, ‘Don’t know.’
Sheriff McCallany reached the gate, and after the fourth attempt, managed to unlock it. ‘Make your way over to my office. Once inside, don’t just crowd around the doorway. Keep moving forward.’
Jack and I were at the back, so we waited until everyone had filtered through the opening before following them.
‘Ah, it’s Shouty McShouterson,’ the sheriff said as Jack passed him. ‘You’ll be glad your brief stay in the Overlook Hotel is over.’
