by Ryan Casey
Jasmine traipsed behind. Barney wandered beside her. He kept panting and sniffing at the road. At scraps of discarded food. At roadkill, lying on the pavement. She didn’t seem as interested in any of this as Noah did. He’d go as far as saying she didn’t seem as concerned about her friend. Or about his friend.
And it bugged him. It got to him.
Because they were supposed to be in all this together.
They were supposed to be a team.
A unit.
But Jasmine’s selfishness was just rearing its ugly head all over again.
“You fancy actually helping me out here?” Noah shouted. “Or is it just gonna be me actually trying to track down our friends?”
Jasmine sighed. “Noah, I don’t actually know what you’re even doing here. I’m not sure staring at the road and pretending to look for clues is going to help so much.”
“It’s better than—than just giving up. Than cutting your losses. But that’s all you know, isn’t it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s all you’ve ever done,” Noah said, knowing full well he should hold back, but unable to contain his rage anymore. “You always do it. You did it to Kelly in her job. You—you did it with so many of your old friends. And you did it with...”
He stopped himself. He didn’t have to say anymore. He hoped Jasmine wouldn’t cotton on to what he was on about, but she wasn’t an idiot.
And he could tell from the way she looked at him that she knew damn well what he was talking about.
“Is that what this is about, really? That age-old resentment about what happened between us?”
Noah turned around. Focused back on the road. “I didn’t mean—”
“You know exactly what you mean. And that’s just it, isn’t it? That’s the wedge that’s always going to drive itself between us. You’ll never forgive me for what happened between us. You’ll never let me off the hook. And I get that. I understand it. But I’m going to tell you something now, Noah. It’s something you’re not going to want to hear, but it’s something you need to hear.”
“Do your worst.”
“It wasn’t just me who was at fault in our relationship. There was a reason I left you. And that reason wasn’t just me. The sooner you start realising the toxic shit that built up between us was a two-way thing, the sooner you can actually start owning up to the fact that you’re not always the fucking victim.”
Noah heard Jasmine’s words, and he felt surprised and stung. He’d never solely accused Jasmine of being at fault for the deterioration of their relationship. He knew he had his issues.
But hearing her put it so bluntly like this... it changed things.
“You knew my issues going in—”
“I tried to kill myself a while ago,” Jasmine said.
Noah opened his mouth. No words came out.
“I took an overdose. Life was shit. I felt guilty for so much. For you. For my friends. For my parents. For everything. And it seemed like the only way out. A spur of the moment thing. And the worst thing is, I feel guilty about it now. I feel guilty that I almost did that to my parents. Because they’re toxic, but they love me. I feel guilty that I almost did that to my dog. And I have to live with that guilt. That knowledge of what I almost did. Every single day of my life.”
Noah was silent. He didn’t say a word. He couldn’t.
Eventually, he walked over towards her. “I didn’t realise.”
“You’re not the only one who’s suffering. You’re not the only one with issues.”
Noah knew that. But again, hearing Jasmine put it so bluntly, it brought it home. It made it real.
Because he knew he’d been selfish. He knew he’d been self-absorbed. So caught up in his own psychodramas that he hadn’t stopped to consider what others might be going through.
“I get that,” he said. “I’m just... I don’t want to lose anyone else. We’ve all suffered enough loss as it is.”
“And I get that,” Jasmine said. “Really. I do. It’s not like I want to lose Kelly either. Or Eddie, for that matter. But I... I’m trying to be rational here, Noah. I’m trying to be pragmatic. And you’ve no idea how difficult being pragmatic is when every single emotion in your body is screaming at you to do the opposite.”
Noah nodded. “I know it’s not easy. We’re all just trying our best. In our own way.”
“Broughton,” Jasmine said.
“What?”
“Broughton. One of the armed guys. They mentioned Broughton.”
Noah frowned. “What? When?”
“When we were in the car. I thought you’d heard them.”
“Of course I didn’t hear them. I’d be heading towards frigging Broughton if I’d heard them.”
“I don’t know what it means,” Jasmine said. “Or where they mean, exactly. And I’m... I’m not entirely sure it’s even the right thing to do. I’m not sure we’ll find any happy answers there. But if it’s what you think is right... then I’ve got your back.”
Noah wanted to lambast Jasmine for keeping this information from him.
But in the end, he could only nod. Half-smile.
He took a deep breath and looked at the empty road ahead.
“Broughton it is, then.”
And then, together, they walked into the unknown.
Thick clouds gathered overhead...
Chapter Fourteen
Jasmine looked at the blocked road up ahead and felt her stomach sink.
It was mid-afternoon. Dark clouds blanketed the street. Seemed like they were getting thicker every minute. It looked like another storm was on the horizon. Felt like it, too. That clamminess to the air. That stillness, a stillness that just felt too... well, still.
But hers and Noah’s journey towards Broughton, as reluctant as she was to traverse it, had gone well so far. They hadn’t run into any trouble. Sure, the usual sights. The occasional body. The occasional stray dog. A few creepy streets here and there. Folks wandering around, rushing to get back to their homes. Homeless people still waiting for change.
But nothing like this.
The street they were on was very suburban. Nice, detached houses lined each side of the road. A pub sat on the corner of a crossroads up ahead, promising “Fresh Grub Daily!” If Jasmine took a deep enough breath, she could convince herself she could still smell the fat from the chips, the crusty pastry from the pies.
Her stomach churned. Best not to think about those things right now. Best not to get carried away in a fantasy that was never going to come to light.
She looked at the cars blocking the road. It looked like something had happened here. Some kind of pile up. A whole bunch of cars slamming into each other, right at this crossroads. Some of them on the pavement, making it hard to pass through.
She knew chances were this place had been abandoned by now. She hadn’t seen anyone with the virus for a long time. It looked like, weirdly, it’d done its work and left its mark. It’d killed the bulk of people. The constant smell of rot in the air that permeated her every step was a keen reminder of that.
But then they hadn’t spent much time out here. They didn’t know for sure.
And they couldn’t get caught up in hypotheticals or what-ifs.
They had to find this place in Broughton that the quarantine group was heading to.
They had to hope that by some miracle, Kelly and Eddie were okay.
And then they had to save them, and get the hell to somewhere safe, whether that was Kelly’s place, or somewhere else.
It seemed unlikely. Seemed far-fetched.
But then what else could they do.
“You okay?” Noah asked.
Jasmine looked at him. He looked tired. His jaw always quivered when he was stressed, something she noticed right now. There were a lot of little quirks and traits she’d forgotten about him. Things she’d learned about him in their relationship. Things she noticed, out of second nature more than anything.
Things she’d forgotten, but that she was being reminded of, all over again.
Which, in a way, was painful. Because they reminded her too much of the good times. The times when things were going well between them.
Better days.
“Yeah,” she said. “I just... Are you sure about this?”
“About what?”
She nodded at the blockade of crashed cars in the road. “Those cars. We’re gonna have to climb over them, or something. You sure that’s something you want to do?”
Noah took a deep breath. Rubbed the back of his neck. Another sure sign of his uncertainty. “It’s not about what I want to do. It’s about what I have to do. What we have to do. For Eddie. For Kelly.”
Jasmine swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded. Every instinct in her body screamed at her that this was the wrong move; that this went against all her best instincts.
But in the end, she knew she had to do this, too. She knew she had to stand by Noah’s side.
Even if it was just to get a horrible kind of closure, it was what it was.
They walked together towards this blockade of cars. The closer they got, the more Jasmine got the sense someone was close. Someone was watching. She looked at the house to her left. A nice place. Detached. Big. An expensive-looking motorbike sitting out front, untouched. Birthday cards on the window-ledge, and a “Happy 16th Maisie!” sign dangling from the door. A haunting reminder of just how normal things were, and so recently, too.
She swore she saw movement behind that window. Swore she saw a curtain twitch.
But she turned around. Focused on the road ahead. She had to. She couldn’t let herself get sidetracked. Couldn’t let herself get distracted from the task at hand.
The closer they got to these cars, the more Jasmine realised getting through them was going to be a problem. Smashed glass poked out. Twisted metal stretched around, blood smeared on its tips.
And inside these cars, bodies.
So many bodies.
Some of them killed by the virus by the looks of things.
Others by the accident itself.
She turned away. Smelled that awful rotting stench. A stench that as much as she could try acclimatising herself to, she knew damn well she’d never truly conquer. It was just a natural reaction to it. The body’s way of warning the mind that something bad was afoot. Something bad was close.
“Come on,” she said. “If we’re gonna do this, we’d better get it done with fast.”
She climbed on to the top of a red Audi. Walked along its roof. She tried not to look down at the other cars. Tried not to look at the people inside. At the empty child booster seats. At the reminders of the tragedy that’d struck a week ago and still hadn’t been cleaned up.
A reminder of how, no matter how much the world tried, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle in this case.
She kept on walking from car to car. She could see the other side of the crossroads in sight. The smells getting stronger. Barney slipping around as he traversed his way between the cars at the side.
“Stay close,” she said. “Wait. Good lad. Come on.”
She looked to her side and saw Noah. A light in his eyes as he made his way across the tops of these cars, too. A look of optimism. Of hope. Like they were close to the end of the road. Like they were close to victory, as distant as it may be in reality.
She smiled at him.
He smiled back at her.
And then she saw something.
Behind the cars, inside the pub, she saw movement.
At first, she thought it was all in her head. She thought it was her mind playing tricks on her. The fatigue. The hunger.
But then she heard the pub door squeak open, and the hairs on her arms stood on end.
“Down,” she said.
“What?”
“Down. Now!”
The door to the pub opened.
And two men stepped out.
Heavy metal baseball bats in hand.
Chapter Fifteen
Noah saw the two men with baseball bats step out of the pub and dropped to the side of the car right away.
He tumbled down the side of the car. Landed on the road with a crack to the head. He felt something split through his right shoulder, something that took all possible self-control to resist crying out.
When he looked around, he saw a chunk of glass sticking out of his shoulder.
“Fuck.” What a fucking idiot. He’d got a piece of glass stuck in his damned knee on the first day, and he’d only just got through that. Now he had one sticking in his shoulder. He wasn’t gonna get lucky twice. He was an idiot. A fucking idiot. He was going to struggle getting it out. It was going to get infected. It was...
He heard those footsteps moving out of the pub. He looked under the car beside him. Saw Jasmine lying there on the other side, Barney beside her. Beyond her, he saw more feet. Five people. All of them talking to one another in loud, intimidating voices. And just the look of them, the kind of guys Noah did all in his power to avoid back in the day.
They needed to lay low. Couldn’t attract their attention.
He lay there on the road. His shoulder throbbed with pain. Blood trickled out of it onto the concrete. He didn’t know how deep it was, but it didn’t feel good. He needed to get it out. Needed to get it stitched up.
But before any of that, they needed to get away from here, one way or another.
“I’m telling you, Gav,” one of those voices said. “I saw someone snooping about here.”
“You always fucking see people snooping about,” the bloke Noah assumed was “Gav” said. “Sure it’s not the booze getting to your head again?”
“Don’t be a dick, man. I know what I saw. It was over there. Looked like... like a bloke and a girl.”
“Always does look like a bloke and a girl with you,” Gav said. “Thought you said your eyes were shit, anyway?”
The other blokes laughed.
“Leave it out, Gav. All of you. You won’t be laughing when we find ’em. Over there, by the Audi. That’s where I saw ’em.”
Noah looked at Jasmine, and immediately the urge to get away grew inside.
He scrambled away from the car. Hobbled his way over to the Range Rover. He didn’t want to get inside a car and play dead again. Already done that enough for one day.
He dragged himself under it, pushing past the pain, pushing through every instinct in his body screaming at him to get that piece of glass out of his body, or to cry out, or whatever.
And then he stuffed himself under the car and held his breath.
Jasmine lay by his side. Barney between them. Noah could hear footsteps getting closer. He could hear his heart racing in his chest. So hard, he could feel it shaking his body.
He felt a hand on his. Jasmine’s.
She wrapped her fingers around his. Her hand so soft. So warm.
And he wanted to push back.
He wanted to resist.
But then he let his fingers interlink with hers, too.
They lay there. Hearts racing. Their pulses so strong. Hands shaking. But together. Together.
And as awful as this moment was, as the footsteps got closer, he wanted it to last forever.
He wanted everything to disappear around them and for this moment to persist.
But then he heard the footsteps stop right opposite, and he was jolted right back into the moment.
He heard shuffling around. Waited for a voice to call them out. For someone to grab his ankle, drag him from underneath the car.
That painful wait, like a game of hide and seek, where you can’t even bear to look in hope that not looking might make you more invisible somehow.
The wait stretched on. The tension in Noah’s body grew. And that pain in his shoulder spread right down his back, right towards his hip.
He heard more shuffling, then a sigh.
“Bloke and a girl by the red Audi, huh?” Gav said. “You’re a fucking idi
ot, Kev.”
And then Noah heard the footsteps moving away from the cars.
Moving away from them.
He let out a sigh as relief flooded his body. They weren’t out of the red yet, but it was progress. It was something.
He looked around at Jasmine. Tightened his hand around hers, just for a moment.
“We’re gonna be okay,” he whispered. “We’re...”
And then he heard something that made his heart skip a beat.
Shuffling.
Behind him.
Then growling, beside him.
His heart raced. He didn’t want to turn around. He didn’t want to look.
But in the end, he couldn’t resist.
He had to see.
He had to know.
He looked around and saw a pair of bright blue eyes staring back at him.
Sharp yellow teeth, grinning at him.
Baseball bat in hand.
“Well, Kev,” the voice—Gav’s —said. “Looks like you ain’t such an idiot after all.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jasmine saw the man called Gav staring under the car at her, and she knew she was screwed.
She tried to move away before he could grab her, but then she felt hands on her shoulders. She kicked out, struggled, but it was already too late. The man dragged her from under the car, banged her head against its side on the way out, knocking her sick.
And before she knew it, she was lying on the road. Noah beside her. Barney growling, barking, between them both.
All those men standing around them both.
Baseball bats in hand.
Looking primed and ready to beat the shit out of the pair of them.
“Well, well,” the apparent leader—Gav—said. “What do we have here then?”
“We don’t want any trouble,” Jasmine said. “We’re just trying to—”
“Oh, that’s what everyone always says. They don’t want any trouble. Fact of the matter is, you’re making your way through our territory. Which means you’re causing trouble, I’m afraid. Big trouble.”
Jasmine went to shout back when she heard something. A shout, from Noah. She looked around. Saw one of the men holding on to that piece of glass sticking out of his shoulder.
