One More Dawn

by John Riley

  ‘Anyway, when I dropped on Nathan I must have… I stabbed his chest and he just slumped,’ Mary put her hands together before her and balled them in her lap, ‘when I looked up my boys were gone, you were gone and it was just me and his… body. I got up, I was covered in blood. I must have stared at the blood, stared at his corpse, for… a while. I heard my boys coming back and couldn’t do anything, I should have run and hid the second I was alone but I didn’t and suddenly they were coming through the door and…’

  She wringed her hands in her lap, silent for a few moments.

  ‘They had puppeted.’ She smiled up at Sarah, her eyes filled with tears, ‘I stood there frozen and they just stumbled past me to get to the window.’ She seemed to stare through Sarah now, her eyes slipping in and out of focus, ‘I realised what would happen next and managed to get through the door before they… woke up. After that it was just a case of talking to them through the door and...’

  Sarah held her second breakfast bar, uneaten. Mary looked like a woman on the edge of insanity. She had seen and done things today that would be enough to make most other people check out and what had she done? She had seen Sarah was exhausted and put her to bed. Either she was so maternal she would take any person under her wing, or she was just as alone as Sarah and was desperate for human emotion from anybody who wouldn’t immediately try to kill her. She’d waited for hours while Sarah had slept and in thanks Sarah had blamed her for Steven’s death and expected her to recount the murdering of her children’s father.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Sarah dropped the bar and put a hand on Mary’s own, ‘none of it was your fault.’

  ‘Steven wa…’

  ‘No.’ Sarah repeated firmly, ‘whatever it is that caused your boys and my Daniel to change; that is what did all of this. You did the best you could for the people you love, I can’t blame you for that.’

  Mary wiped a hand across her eyes and grinned at Sarah,

  ‘I can’t stop crying, I think I’m too tired to keep a hold on anything anymore.’

  ‘Do you want me to watch while you sleep?’ Sarah offered, sincerely.

  ‘No, I…’ Mary looked hard at Sarah for a moment, ‘I have to go, I’ve left it late as it is.’

  Sarah watched as Mary stood and for the first time, she didn’t want the other woman to leave. She kept her mouth shut though, there was no way she was keeping Mary from her family any more, whether she agreed with the woman’s choices or not, it wasn’t her place.

  ‘Sarah.’ Mary turned at the door and Sarah looked up at her, the woman had taken her phone but was holding it up to light the room, ‘I want to offer to bring you with me.’

  Sarah thought she heard a “but” coming,

  ‘But,’ There it was, ‘I’ve already done so much, lost so much, that I just can’t chance it. I trust you, but if anything went wrong and you died, or the boy’s died…’

  ‘I understand.’ Sarah said around a lump in her throat. Mary nodded but didn’t leave,

  ‘What are you going to do?’ The other woman asked.

  The question was one that had been using all of Sarah’s free brain power since she woke up. She’d known regardless of what Mary said that she wouldn’t be going with her, then because she hated her, now because she just couldn’t. But what could she do exactly? Now that she was a little more rested she realised she couldn’t call Daniel again. She shuddered at the thought that he might have been here still, or that he might have collected his phone and answered it and then that would have been that. She could go and see if Miles had survived, but that would most probably end in the exact same fashion. Going to her parents was out of the question, they lived too far away to walk and based on the phone call with her dad earlier they weren’t even at home. There was no way she could live the rest of her life in this abandoned factory either, nor did she feel any inclination to try. All she could do it seemed, was sort out her immediate needs and live to see just one more dawn.

  ‘I’m going to stay here.’ She answered, ‘For now, probably just for tonight.’

  ‘But, then what?’ Mary prodded,

  ‘Then?’ Sarah tried to think, ‘I guess make my way out of town, see if I can outrun what’s happening.’ As she was saying it she knew that wouldn’t be what she did. Despite everything else she was pretty sure there was no way she could out run it. Maybe by boat but even then, if this was a disease or a virus, it was an insidious one that hid itself well. It would spread like wildfire with nobody knowing it had hit, leaving confusion in its wake instead of horror. It seemed Mary agreed with Sarah’s unspoken thoughts because she made a face.

  ‘Or I don’t know, try and get in touch with others like us?’ Sarah added lamely. Mary nodded at this one,

  ‘Well, I added my number to your phone while you were asleep.’ She waved the piercing light in her hands and Sarah squinted away, ‘so keep in touch.’

  Both women stared at each other, both wanting the other to say something that made the moment last longer. To stop time and not make their lives be this hell now.

  ‘Bye then,’ Mary said awkwardly,

  ‘Yeah, bye.’ She watched Mary turn and leave before calling, ‘good luck!’

  ‘You too!’ Came the reply, ‘remember, keep in touch!’

  Sarah watched as the light diminished and she was left alone in the darkness. A couple of minutes later she heard Mary’s car drive away and then she was truly alone. She took her phone out of her pocket, three percent battery. Enough power for one phone call and then Mary’s number would be lost. She flicked through to recent calls and pressed Daniel’s number. It rang through to voicemail again but this time she didn’t hang up.

  ‘Hi Dan, it’s me.’ She paused, what did you say to the man you’d tortured in a vat? ‘I’m… Sorry. I know that’s ridiculous, but I am. I’m sorry for who I was, I’m sorry for who I am and you were right to leave me. I’ve come to see that…’ The tone in her ear faded and she looked at her phone in the dark. It had died. He’d probably delete the message without listening to it anyway.

  What now? She wondered idly. She couldn’t do anything in the dark, couldn’t move about for fear of tripping down the catwalk stairs and honestly, she was still exhausted. The pile of sleeping bags beneath her were warm and soft and it just felt too good to move. So, she didn’t. She didn’t sleep though; reaching around her in the dark she managed to find the little radio and after turning it on to find that it too had died, she wound the handle on it until it spluttered to life. She turned the volume down until the hiss and crackle sounded like part of the music, then she set it up next to her with its little red light adding depth to the shadows around her. She wondered if Daniel would go to work in the morning. She guessed he probably would, looking all sexy with his new, better body. Then again all of his students would be changed now as well… Or at least the older ones might be. She’d not had time to put much thought into it, but if this was a disease and children couldn’t survive it, it might keep the living alive, but nobody would be making any more people. Mary really hadn’t been the reason Steven had died then, she just made it happen faster. If eventually they were all going to be turned. If they weren’t all body swapped; she was getting tired of hearing her arguments now and so instead settled down to think of other things.

  She tried, but her mind wouldn’t focus on anything but the monsters. She wondered absently whether Laura had escaped unscathed, then wondered whether she was old enough to be changed and then wondered whether the aliens that were doing the body swapping were having fun with the whole damn thing.

  ‘Fuck it.’ She said, hearing her words bounce around the empty room, ‘it’s a genetically engineered flu virus created by science to stop the need for hair product adverts.’ The silence after her outburst sounded somehow deeper.

  She decided that perhaps sleep wouldn’t be an altogether bad thing. Switching the radio off she scooted her pile of bedding over until she was lying across the doorway. Any intruders would think she w
as a draught excluder and hopefully leave her be. Her sleep deprived brain managed to set her giggling to her own stupid joke. Maybe if she asked nicely they would even let her just stay here, she wasn’t hurting anybody and draught excluders didn’t need to eat. The absurdity of her owns thoughts sobered her a little, perhaps sleep sooner rather than later. But it wouldn’t come, as tired as she was she lay awake listening to the silence.

  She was the only person she’d ever known who wasn’t afraid of nothingness. Everybody had a form of fear based around the lack of something, whether it be the fear of heights which just boiled down to the openness of space beneath you, or a fear of deep water which was not knowing what was below. Fear of the dark confused her more than any other though, nothing that was there in the dark didn’t exist in the day and nobody was afraid then. But she supposed it was a loss of control, something she searched for desperately to hide the fact that life was bereft of any real meaning or point. You lived, you died. Silence to her was a continuation of the darkness. An emptiness that left you with no knowledge of the space around you. She revelled in the thrill of the unknown and it soothed her. Before long she was snoring and the silence ceased to be.

  26

  Sarah woke up. It took her a few moments to realise where she was and why she appeared to be tied up on the floor, it was the sleeping bags. In her obviously fitful sleep she had managed to become entangled and it took in her opinion far too long to get out. She could see again too, which meant that it must be morning, but judging from the fact that everything seemed coloured a dull grey, still very early. She managed to sit up with her back against the door, again it took longer than expected, this time because her many aches and pains made moving undesirable.

  So, it was a new day, she was still alone, still in pain and very much still without a plan. But she was bizarrely happy. Or at least not miserable, which considering everything, was something of a miracle. Maybe the craziness had set in, she didn’t feel crazy, but seeing as she didn’t know what crazy would feel like, she wouldn’t know if she felt it and so it was probably best not to think about it. She had to figure something out though; sitting on the floor for the rest of her life might seem nice now but it’d get dull fast. A plan of action for right now then. Well she was hungry, starving actually, so she would get some food.

  The bag was still at the table, outside of the pile of warm sleeping bags. She groaned and willed herself to her feet. The room was freezing, even fully clothed Sarah could feel it. She darted to the bag, hooked the straps with one arm and jumped back into the sleeping bags to warm up again. Searching through she pulled out some tins, one more breakfast bar and then she was scraping the bottom of the bag.

  ‘Shit.’ She swore, one breakfast bar, that was all she could eat now. The tins of fruit and beans would have to wait until she could find a tin opener. So possibly never. She tore into the bar, inhaled it and felt absolutely no different than before. Ok, maybe she was feeling pretty miserable. Maybe there would be a tin opener in some of the things downstairs, she thought. It meant leaving her warm nest again but her stomach was shouting at her so she groaned and got up. First things first she moved the sleeping bags away from the door. Taking her time to roll two of them up and push them down into a third. This one she managed to force into the bag that had held the food. The rest of the sleeping bags she left by the table, chances were she wouldn’t be spending another night here. She put the bag of bags on the table with the radio and took a look around. Nothing else of worth jumped out at her so she grabbed two tins of fruit and made her way out onto the catwalk.

  The large open factory floor was like an arctic cave. The metal railing going down the stairs was icy to the touch and she used it as little as she could as she proceeded down. Once on ground level, with her breath hanging in the air around her she began searching through the pile of things, knowing there was no can opener. Her search did get her a small multi-tool with a torch that didn’t work and a blunt knife. She also found the hammer, dropped at the base of Daniel’s hatch and a little sticky with his blood.

  Sarah found herself standing at the hatch with the hammer in her hand, staring down at both with a mix of wonder and revulsion. More had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours than she believed could ever happen to one person in a lifetime. Now she was alone and left to pick up the pieces. But the pieces had been stamped into shards and the shards ground into dust. No, she was trying to think too far ahead again. Her stomach growled painfully and she shook herself out of her fugue. There wasn’t much point in going back to the canteen but it didn’t feel right to eat here, so she carried her meagre haul and the tins back upstairs.

  She put a tin of peaches down on the table and took a moment to wonder the logistics of opening a tin with a hammer. She figured that a tin opener only really cut around the inside of the rim so she decided to try that. With the pathetic knife held against the metal she lifted the hammer carefully and tapped. Nothing happened. She hit it a little harder and it indented. With two more slightly harder hits she managed to catch her thumb against the tin and make her first hole in the metal. Triumphant and annoyed in equal measures she worked her way around the top and in a few minutes had a ragged hole large enough to scoop the contents out of. Dragging the slimy, bitter sweet lumps of peach out with the now very dull knife she set to work eating. The fruit was cold, the room was cold, inevitably Sarah was cold. One of the sleeping bags on the floor wrapped around her shoulders with another beneath her, Sarah sat on the floor and wished she could be bothered to open a second tin.

  Everything would be hard if she tried to rough it alone. For one thing if she didn’t want to stay here another night, which she didn’t, she’d have to search for another place to stay. She’d told Mary she was going to find other people like them, but where to start and how to go about it? She had no idea. The sheer uselessness of her life threatened to come crashing down on her. She decided to do the only sensible thing and ignore it. That was her hunger, the uselessness of life and her lack of plan. All ignored.

  ‘And now I need to pee.’ She groaned into the silence. She forced herself up again and made the treacherously freezing journey down to the hallway off the factory floor. She was about to go into the women’s toilet when she remembered it’d already been used. Turning to look at the men’s she shrugged to herself and pushed the door. It didn’t budge. Pushing harder against it made it bow in a little but not open. She glanced at the women’s but more than not wanting to add to the mess, she was curious now. Taking a step back she rammed the door with a shoulder and it pushed whatever was impeding it from the other side a little, enough to leave a gap. A few more shoves and she was in.

  It stank. Not the ordinary reek of long abandoned bathrooms, it stank of something over ripe, sweet and putrid. This bathroom must have been against the outside wall because there was a tiny window near the ceiling that let in some very dirty light. With the help of the light Sarah saw that a toilet had been placed against the inside of the door. The toilet was filled with bits of brick and other debris and had left a mark across the tiles where she’d pushed it. Sudden horrible realisation dawned on her and her neck prickled like somebody had poured ice cold water down her back. The toilet had to have been pushed from the inside, the window wouldn’t open and would be too small to crawl through anyway. She wasn’t alone.

  She froze where she stood and tried to stay quiet. Her heart seemed to be trying to call out to whatever was in the room, it’s thumping seemed obnoxiously loud to her. Nothing else seemed to move and no other sound seemed to come from the room. She released a breath and began to move back towards the door. But why? She thought. She still needed to pee and maybe it had been an elaborate prank by the workers as they’d left… She didn’t believe it but found herself tip toeing to the stalls all the same. The smell got stronger as she neared them and she recognised it now as the smell they had first encountered in the hall. The stalls were both open, the closest was obviously empty but the last w
as just as obviously not. Holding onto her fear with her fingertips Sarah peeked inside.

  A shape, vaguely humanoid and wrapped in multiple layers of clothing, was in a rough sitting position against the back wall where the toilet had once been. The face was obscured by a huge dirty beard and a hideous woollen bobble hat that seemed several sizes too large for the head it covered. All she could see of the face were the eyes; half closed and staring blankly at the floor. Sarah held her breath against the stench of what she now knew was death and stared in fascinated horror at the corpse. It was completely still in a way that only inanimate objects could be. She noticed the needles scattered at the thing’s feet and noted another against what she now could see was the grey flesh of an arm. He’d died of an overdose maybe, or from cold whilst he was high. Or of a heart attack, there really was no way she could tell. Whatever had killed him, he was very much dead and not in a state to hurt her. After the monsters of the last day a corpse really wasn’t very high on her list of horrible things. Still, she wasn’t about to use the stall next to it. Retreating from the bathroom she closed the door behind herself with a snap. Now she definitely wasn’t staying another night; she felt dirty from sleeping so close to it last night. It was ridiculous, she wasn’t afraid, but she was disgusted.

  Miles would have thought it was too bad he’d died rather than being turned, she thought as she exited the women’s toilets having relieved herself. She looked at the door to the men’s toilets as she walked past and shuddered at a new thought. The disease, or virus, or whatever this thing was; what if it didn’t work just on the living? She stopped in mid stride and blanched. Had the thing in fact ever worked on the living? Every person she had seen turned had been beaten, ripped and broken. Every person she had seen turned had seemed dead beforehand. What if that was the secret? What if you had to die to be changed? Maybe that was why Stevie had just died, he hadn’t been killed by the monster, but by the counter, or the fall or…