Breeding Ground

by Sarah Pinborough

  The handle turned and the door was pulled open in front of me, revealing John holding a key. “Dib, dib, dib. Be prepared. It was hanging by the door. Must be a spare.” He winked. “Welcome home, mate.” John’s face shone with boyish adventure, and for the first time since we’d met I could see the resilience of his youth picking his spirits up, and I gave him a wry smile.

  “You need to go on a diet. I think my arms are broken.”

  “Whatever.” His hand darted to his side, and he flicked a switch. Dull yellow light ebbed into the building from a single bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling. The boy grinned.

  “Well, it’s better than nothing. Come on, let’s get the others.” He slapped me on the arm as he passed, trotting happily back out into the rain. Peering into the room, I wasn’t overly impressed. There was no carpet on the grey concrete floor and the walls had been painted with a similar eggshell colour, the shade and sheen giving the small space the feel of a prison room. Still, on the upside, there was a door marked TOILET on the far side and a two bar electric fire pushed against the wall, alongside a row of tatty chairs and a dusty bookshelf with a few tattered paperbacks leaning listlessly within.

  My eyes came back to the fire. If the lights were working then logic would dictate that the plugs were. But logic could be a fucker sometimes.

  George appeared in the doorway carrying a large container of water, putting it down heavily on the floor before slowly straightening up. He sighed, one hand massaging his lower back.

  “The girls are digging out the camping stove and Nigel’s getting the sleeping bags from your car. The general feeling is that we just bring what we need in, and leave the rest stowed.”

  I nodded. “Sounds good to me. I don’t know about you, but it feels to my bones like it’s been one hell of a long day.”

  “Add on another forty years, sonny, then come and talk to me about what kind of day it’s been on the joints.”

  I grinned. “Point taken.”

  Nigel came past us carrying three sleeping bags and a rucksack with can shapes bulging through the soaking canvas, and I wondered how comfortable that neatly done-up tie and shirt was now that the rain had hit. It didn’t seem to bother him, though, as he dumped his burden in the middle of the room. Beneath the sickly yellow glow, I couldn’t tell whether his exposed forehead was dripping with sweat, as it had been when we’d first met, or just wet from the flood outside. He glanced around without bothering to wipe the liquid from his face.

  “Could be worse.” The sneer that twisted his lips hinted that as far as Nigel Phelps was concerned, the likelihood of actually finding somewhere less pleasant was almost an impossibility. He peered at the broken window. “How are we going to block that up?”

  George and I both turned to it as Katie and Jane came into the hut beside us, the first carrying a camping gas stove and the second barely visible beneath a final bundle of sleeping bag holders. Both managed a wan smile before adding their loads to Nigel’s pile. Dave followed behind them, a bag of aerosols slung over one shoulder and his good hand carrying the first aid box. A fresh bloom of pink was visible through the layers of bandage coming loose on his injured wrist.

  “It’s not cold out there and the window’s pretty small. Can’t we just leave it? We’re only stopping overnight.” George must have been tired, because it wasn’t like him not to want to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Not where our safety was concerned. Leaning forward, Dave grimaced as he twisted his upper body, letting the bag slip onto one of the chairs against the wall.

  “Well, I’m as shattered as the rest of you, but that window is going to be sealed before I relax. I don’t care how we do it.”

  Looking at the pain etched on his face, I agreed with him. No matter how far we were from other houses, I didn’t fancy trying to sleep with one eye on whether any of those awful legs were silently creeping in. Dave’s face had paled since we left Milton Keynes, and the redness in his eyes suggested that his temperature was rising. He was running a fever and I hoped it wasn’t going to get any worse, but for the first time since the attack I wondered if there may have been some kind of poison in that bite. The thought made my skin cool and I shivered some of my tiredness away, focussing on the source of our unease.

  “Yeah, you’re right. We can’t leave it like that. But what can we use? This place is hardly teeming with two-by-fours.”

  Katie opened the rucksack that Nigel had come in with, searching the tins for something we could heat up quickly.

  “What about the parcel shelf from the Range Rover? I almost threw it away since it was taking up most of the backseat. That’d probably cover that space, don’t you think? Do we have any tools?”

  “Yes. There’s some in the Animal.” I said another silent prayer of thanks for George and the list of necessities he’d sent us shopping for. “A box of the basics at any rate. Hammers, nails. Plenty to do the job. Chuck me the keys and I’ll go and get it.”

  Kattie smiled gently at me, one can of Sainsbury’s all-day breakfast in her hand. “It’s not locked. I didn’t exactly see the point. I doubt there’s too many joy riders out tonight. Especially not for a car with a flat tyre.”

  I grinned back, glad that we seemed to have reached a kind of truce after this morning in the pub, and risked a joke.

  “Get my dinner on, wench, while I do the man work.”

  One delicate eyebrow raised at me. “Let’s just take a moment to remember who was stuck in the car not so long ago, and who was killing the nasty monster.”

  Swallowing another couple of pills from the first aid box, Dave laughed. “She’s got you there, mate.”

  “Okay, point taken. You win. I’ll just get out there and do the manual labour and hope for some crumbs when I get back. That’s if you heroes can spare me a bean.”

  “We’ll see what we can do. Now go!” She shooed me away with a can opener.

  With a slightly lighter heart, I headed back out into the night rain, breaking into a trot.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  We ate our dinner of beans, sausages and bacon on paper plates, and then finished off with tinned peaches, evaporated milk and coffee, all of us huddled round the fire, sitting on our sleeping bags, listening to the wind that was building up outside, mostly too tired to speak. It felt to me as if we had travelled back in time to the second World War, just a group of ordinary people holed up in their air raid shelter, waiting for the worst to pass over their heads, not knowing what the blackness of the night held in store for them.

  Jane was virtually asleep sitting up, and Katie took her plate and gently eased her into her padded bed, still fully dressed, the little girl putting up no resistance. George opened a bottle of expensive red wine and the rest of us sipped it quietly, letting its rich warmth soothe and dull our heads a little. By the time I was halfway through my first glass John had drifted off, emotional and physical exhaustion claiming its second victim and reminding us all just how fucking tired we were.

  Still shivering, Dave pulled on another fleece before sinking inside his sleeping bag for the night, only his freshly bandaged arm visible. Nigel disappeared into the small toilet for several minutes, a washing bag under one arm, and when he emerged he wore pyjamas and looked scrubbed and clean.

  “If you go in there, be careful of my contacts. They’re on the side in their solution. There’s not a lot of space, so try not to knock them over.” He looked at me with slight disdain, as if he could tell I really had no intention of scrubbing myself clean. Where the hell had he gotten lens solution? He must have gone and found it while we were sticking to George’s list in John Lewis. Nice of him to check whether anyone else needed some.

  Still sniffing in my direction, Phelps put his washbag down in the corner. “I’ve left spare toothbrushes for everyone in there.”

  George had moved his sleeping bag to the wall and was sitting up skimming the blurb on the back of an old paperback he’d taken from the shelf. Smiling, he raised his topped up glas
s at Phelps. “Thank you kindly, but I may wait until the morning before I take advantage of your kind offer. This is a very fine wine, and I don’t want to spoil it with mint.”

  “Suit yourselves.” Nigel’s pinched expression acknowledged that he knew George spoke for the rest of us that were awake, and turning his stiff back on us, he arranged his suit carefully on one of the chairs. “I just don’t see why we should let our standards slip. You can always judge a man on his personal hygiene.” Still muttering to himself, he spread out his sleeping bag in a little space away from the rest of us and climbed inside. “You can turn that light out whenever you’re ready.”

  We left the light on for a further twenty minutes, until the collective irritation had cooled enough to realise we were being childish. Eventually it was Katie that got up and flicked the switch, before coming back and sitting with me. It seemed that she wasn’t ready for sleep anymore than George and I, but rather than chatting, we sat together and yet apart, each lost in our own thoughts and memories, until the rhythmic rustle of paper brought both Katie and me back to the present.

  “What are you reading?” I kept my voice low as I peered across through the shadows to the red glow of the fire where George was turning the pages of a tatty paperback.

  “You ought to be careful reading in that light. You’ll damage your eyes.” Smiling at the older man, Katie leaned in closer to me, and I have to admit it felt pretty good having her so near.

  The creases in his face, elongated by the semi-darkness, became caverns of blackness, making George almost unrecognisable apart from the kind, intelligent twinkle in his eyes.

  “Thanks for your concern, but at my age, your eyes aren’t too much of a worry.” His smile widened. “They’re about the only part of me that doesn’t complain if I move too quickly in the mornings.” He turned the yellowing book over, reflecting on the cover. “John Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes. Have you read it?”

  I shook my head and so did Katie.

  “Well, you should. It’s a damned good book. I read it the first time about thirty years ago, and it’s as good this time round as it was then. Good books are timeless.” He raised his glass. “Like good wine.” Pausing, he took a sip. “Anyway, this time it’s more of a research project. You see, it’s a kind of end-of-the-world book. I’m wondering if Mr. Wyndham has any better ideas of what we can do than we do.” Smiling, he returned his gaze to the text and lost himself in it.

  Across the room, Nigel murmured and called out something from beneath the zipped quilted covers, his body twisting slightly in the casing. However much Nigel thought he was holding it together in daylight, his sleep had been pretty much constantly restless since he’d gone down for the night, and whatever was cracking up his conscious state was having fun with his unconscious one.

  “I don’t like that man.” Katie stared over into the corner, her voice hard.

  “I’m not too keen, either. But he may shape up. We’ll have to wait and see.” After what Nigel had said about the man with the air rifle having the right idea for shooting at them, I couldn’t blame Katie for her dislike. But there was more to it than that. Phelps just didn’t like women, and I doubted he’d had that much respect for them when they were all normal. I wondered what kind of life the late Mrs. Phelps would have had. Dull, dreary and patronised, more than likely. I bet there was one pissed off widow out there that really wished she’d got her man.

  “But I do like him.” Katie nodded in the direction of Dave. “And I’m worried about that bite.”

  “He looks like he’s running a fever.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he is, but I’m not surprised. That bite was looking a lot worse tonight.”

  Our eyes met, and the fear in hers made me remember how young she really was. She was looking at me as if I could somehow make things better. As if having reached the almost old age of thirty, I had some infinite knowledge that could cure him. Oh yes, mutant female spider bite. I know just the thing. . . . But behind that hope was a twenty-year-olds slowly unwrapping knowledge that all that was just a pipe dream of childhood. No one had the answers. In fact, no one had a fucking clue.

  “How do you mean? Do you think there’s poison in there?”

  She shrugged slightly and sipped her wine. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Would it you?”

  “No, not really. Looking at Dave earlier, I figured there may have been something more to that bite, but I was hoping that there wasn’t.” I paused, looking at her green eyes, which seemed to flicker yellow in the warm light, and wondered what they hid. “What about you? How are you doing?”

  Lowering her head, she avoided my eyes and tucked a long curl behind her ear. “Oh, I’m okay. As long as Jane is, I will be.” Looking over at where her little sister slept, the lines of tension that had begun to form around her mouth softened. “It’s funny. I don’t really know her that well. I mean, there’s ten years between us. I was a late baby and I guess my parents thought their days of being able to have children were over, and they became a little less careful with their precautions.” She grinned, not at me, but at the memory of people that I would never meet.

  “My mother was in the throes of the menopause when she fell with Janie. She never tires of telling people that one.” A small flinch went through her as she stumbled over the use of the present tense. We both let it pass without correction. “Anyway, the age gap was such that as much as I love Jane, we’ve never really done much together. Not once she started school, at any rate. And then by the time she was nine, I’d done my A levels and was off to university. Bit of a waste of time, really. I graduated this summer and look at the world now. I wish I’d stayed at home and had more time with my family.”

  I could feel the barriers she was putting up and squeezed her arm. It felt so fragile through the thick fabric of the man’s sweater she was wearing.

  “Hey, foresight is something all of us wish we’d had a bit of right now.” Glancing over at George, lost in his old book, I wondered how he was coping with the loss of his family. Probably the same way as I was coping with the loss of Chloe. By ignoring it. By putting the grief out of reach for now and by doing those we’d lost proud by surviving. Or at least attempting to for another day or two.

  “She’s a good kid. I think she’s dealing with all of this better than some,” I said.

  “Yes. Yes, she is. I think my mum would be proud. I certainly am.”

  Even with the sleeping bag beneath me, the ground was hard, and I lay down on one side resting on one elbow and took a long gulp of wine, draining my glass.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  This time her gaze met mine, straight and strong. She didn’t need me to spell out what I meant. She shook her head.

  “No. The past couple of days are private to me and Janie. If she wants to talk about it when she’s ready, than that’s fine with me, but I’m not like that. I need it inside me to keep me strong. I don’t expect that makes a lot of sense, but that’s how I am. What about you?”

  The idea of retelling my pain for the second time that day weighed my soul down, and I shook my head. “I think we can both live without that story right at the moment.”

  Nodding, she said nothing, and we sat in silence for a few moments, until eventually she lay down facing me. Again, her beautiful eyes intrigued me; staring into them, I was so glad that they weren’t brown, so glad they couldn’t make me think of Chloe.

  She chewed her bottom lip delicately. “Can I ask you something?”

  I lowered my voice so it matched her whisper. “Sure.”

  “I don’t mean this in any funny way, but . . .” Her eyes slipped away from me. “But will you hold me while I go to sleep? I . . . I think I need the contact.”

  Saying nothing, not wanting to embarrass her or make her feel more uncomfortable—and also knowing my own innate ability for saying the wrong thing, which came with the territory of maleness—I moved across as she slid into her sack, her body facing the other way. Unzipping my o
wn bag I got in and then curled up behind Katie, one arm around her waist. Holding my hand, she pulled it upwards so that it was under her chin, her face warm and soft, and making my heart ache for reasons I was too tired to analyse.

  “Good night, Matt.” Her breath brushed over my fingers.

  “Good night, Katie. Sleep tight.”

  I’m not sure how long I lay there listening to the rain outside and the rhythmic breathing around me, occasional moans and sounds coming as dreams and pain injected themselves into the night, my mind numb to thought. All I know is that somewhere after Katie and before George, I eventually drifted off into my own restless sleep.

  I woke up suddenly with fear making my breath catch in my throat, my survival gene ahead of the rest of me, shaking me free of the grip of my dark dreams of Chloe and widows and the inescapable mixing of the two. I stared at the others in the glow of the fire.

  “What the fuck was that?” Dave sat bolt upright. George was already out of his sleeping bag and Nigel was on his feet, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

  From outside, mixed in with the increased level of the wind and rain, glass smashed angrily and something hard thudded into the wall to my left.

  “Jane! Get over here!” The hiss in Katie’s voice alone was enough to make the small girl scurry into the arms of her older sister.

  “What is it?” John coughed, hauling himself sleepily in my direction. He pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the back of his jeans. “Shit.” Rooting inside the box, he found one that wasn’t too damaged and lit it, sucking in hard. “What’s happening?”

  I shrugged, my body tingling with adrenaline. “I don’t know.” I tried not to whisper, but failed.

  “There’s something outside. Isn’t there?” Nigel’s voice was almost a snivel, and he huddled in with Katie and Jane in the centre of the room.