Breeding Ground

by Sarah Pinborough

  “What’s so funny?” Despite Rebecca being the one with the disability, I suddenly felt very left out.

  “She says you’d better learn, because she doesn’t intend to write everything down forever.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I responded, aiming my words and raised eyebrows at the dark girl sitting cross-legged on the bed. She grinned at me, and once again I got the impression that I’d very much underestimated this woman.

  “Is everything okay?” Jane sounded more curious than concerned.

  “Sure it is.” I paused. “Why don’t you sleep in with your sister tonight, Jane? I’m sure she’d like it. I should imagine she’s been missing you over the past few days.” Ever since she kicked me out at any rate, I almost added.

  The little girl shook her head adamantly.

  “Why not, honey? Have you two had a row?”

  “No, nothing like that.” Her expression was fixed and stubborn.

  “So what is it? What’s the problem?” I perched on the side of the bed, and Jane glanced sideways up at me.

  She wanted to tell me something, that was for sure. “Try me.”

  She took a deep breath and blew her fringe up. “She smells funny. Bad funny.”

  I looked at Rebecca, but she shrugged. What Jane said obviously didn’t surprise her, but she didn’t seem to share the little girl’s opinion.

  “I didn’t notice anything. Are you sure you’re not just imagining it?” I wasn’t lying to make her feel better. I’d held Katie close to me coming back from the fence and sat close to her in the comms room, and she’d just smelled warm, sweet and feminine to me.

  “I’m not lying. I knew you’d think I was making it up. I just can’t stand how she started to smell.” Her bottom lip stuck out slightly and trembled, making her look very much like a child. “I wish I could change the way it makes me feel. I really do.” She tucked her knees under her chin, hugging them closely, and her next words were so quietly sad I could barely hear them. “But she just smells so bad.”

  Tears started to tumble down her cheeks and Rebecca stroked her hair.

  “Hey, that’s okay. You don’t have to go. Stay here with Rebecca if you want to.” I hated myself for upsetting her, and wished I hadn’t said anything at all. “Katie’ll probably just go straight to sleep, anyway. You stay here.”

  She didn’t look up from her knees. “Rebecca smells nice. She smells normal.”

  George tugged me gently back, and nodding a good night at Rebecca, we closed the door, leaving the woman to comfort Jane.

  The gloom of the unlit dorm washed over us again.

  “What do you make of that?” I could barely make out George’s face, even though he was whispering close to me.

  “I don’t know. I don’t like the sound of that smell. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” If I was honest, the whole of the night’s activities had left a twisted knot in my stomach.

  Our creeping was unnecessary since by the time I’d reached my bed, it seemed that nearly all the dorm were awake. John was sitting on the top step of the open hut door, quietly smoking a cigarette, and White-head was perched nearby on the edge of Maine’s empty bed. For a couple of seconds, no one said a word, the atmosphere charged with curiosity.

  “So, what’s going on?” It was Daniel that finally spoke, his thick-set body merely a dark shadow at the far side of the room, his naturally rough accent not allowing for any hint of concern.

  “Nothing, really. Don’t worry about it—just go back to sleep.” I was too damn tired to talk about it now, and definitely not with Daniel. Our little group of survivors was quietly and slowly dividing itself into two, one group that listened mainly to George, and the other—surprisingly and rather worryingly—seemed to take its lead from Nigel. That crowd was pretty much Daniel, Michael and Jeff. Dean sat somewhere in the middle, and seemed to be pretty unimpressed with any of us. Whitehead said he’d always been a loner. The small ember of light from his bed showed that he was awake and smoking.

  “It didn’t seem like nothing.” Jeff had sat up, and I didn’t like the sullen accusatory tone that deadened his words. Ignoring him, I went over to the door and sat down alongside John, lighting a cigarette of my own. The rain had eased a little but was still coming down in a steady stream, and lit by the brightness of the floodlights it was a little hypnotic to watch, like staring into the flames of an open fire.

  George’s mattress creaked as he climbed back under the sheets. “Well, it was something that turned out to be nothing, let’s put it that way. Katie just went sleepwalking and Matt got worried.” He yawned, and I wasn’t sure how much that was for effect or for real. “But everyone’s back in bed now, and no harm done.”

  “Katie went sleepwalking?” The emphasis in Nigel’s voice made it perfectly clear that he was unhappy about it being one of the girls rather than one of us.

  “Yes, Nigel, that’s what I said. Now why don’t we all get back to sleep before our chattering wakes Dave up?”

  Dave was snoring steadily and I figured it would take more than one tense conversation to raise him, but Nigel grunted and laid down. “We should keep an eye on her. She hasn’t been acting normal lately. I don’t want to wake up and find her trying to eat me.”

  “Oh, shut up, Nigel.” The words were out of my mouth before I realised I’d spoken my thoughts aloud, but the shock that someone as self-absorbed as Phelps had noticed Katie’s change in behaviour had thrown me completely. But at least I wasn’t the only one that was disgusted by his words.

  “She’s hardly fat, is she, so I don’t think we’ve got too much to worry about there, do you?” Whitehead almost spat the words at Phelps.

  “Well, you can’t be too careful.” Nigel lay back down, sulkily.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much if I was you, mate. You’re just wishful thinking.” John didn’t turn round, but continued to stare out at the rain. “Katie’s got too much good taste to eat you.”

  Chris Whitehead snorted boyishly at the barbed remark, and Nigel huffed beneath his covers.

  “Well, we’ll see who has the last laugh, won’t we?” He hadn’t lost any of his supercilious shit, and I bit my tongue to stop me from escalating this into a full scale row. It was as if he wanted Katie to turn into a widow just to prove himself right. What the hell kind of a person would think like that? A fucking crazy person, that was who, and the worst part was that he actually seemed to have found some people who would listen to him, so that must make them pretty crazy, too. Fucking great. I smoked with fury until the cigarette was finished and then lit another one, staring out into the hectic night. When I looked up, having finally calmed down slightly, I noticed that Whitehead had gone back to bed, and the room seemed to have lulled into a round of deep breathing, hinting at most people being asleep, or very nearly asleep.

  John still sat beside me, smoking steadily. After about another twenty minutes, he ground a butt out on the step beside him.

  “He’s right, of course.” His soft voice was low. “We will have to keep an eye on her. But I’m fucked if I’m going to let a crazy bastard like that know that he may have a point.”

  Standing up, he disappeared into the gloom behind me, and before long his steady breathing joined the others. Sitting there on the step, mesmerised by the rain and kept awake by my heavy heart, I felt very much like the last man alive. And in some ways I wished to fuck I was.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “So, what shall we do? We can’t just sit here staring at it all day.”

  Maine had been eager to let it in from the first moment Daniel had spotted it sitting down at the front gate twenty minutes previous. And maybe if there hadn’t been at least fifteen widows prowling nearby I may have been more inclined to agree with him. But as it was, the idea of opening up our defences wasn’t too appealing to me.

  “Why aren’t they attacking it?” Whitehead’s scientific curiosity had forced his nose about four inches from the screen, as if he needed to be really clo
se up to believe what he was seeing. What would he have done if our new arrival had appeared on one of the higher monitors? Climbed onto a chair to peer at it? Probably. I didn’t put it past him.

  Oliver was twitching, rubbing his hands against his rough silver beard, eager just to press the access button on the panel, showing the kind of anxiety I’d expect of him around booze. It was quite endearing, really. And it seemed these days that he’d got his drinking well and truly under control. Yin and yang. World goes mad, Oliver Maine quits drinking.

  “What’s going on?” Katie and Dave joined the throng around the screens that were our eyes to the outside world, Katie’s voice still blurry with sleep. It was eleven A.M. and they’d both obviously just got up. Not that that was a surprise. Although Dave was getting back to health pretty quickly, he still got tired fast, and as for Katie, well, since that sleepwalking night three weeks previous, I’d caught her trying to leave the dorm each one. George and I were trying to keep a vigil up, but it was difficult, and the night before she’d been out the door before my subconscious dragged me awake.

  Looking at her rubbing sleep out of her eyes, I felt almost envious. Whatever was disturbing her nights had pretty much ruined mine. The dry taste of sleep deprivation seemed to have taken up residence in my mouth, and for a moment I didn’t know why I bothered. Part of me wondered if maybe I should just let Nigel find her outside in the rain. Why was I protecting her?

  “Wow!” Her green eyes widened. “Hey, look at that, Matt!” Her eyes found mine and she grinned, all elfish excitement, melting my heart in two seconds. She worked on me. That’s why I was exhausting myself to make sure she was all right without her even remembering in the mornings. I grinned back, suddenly once again putty in her hands. She’d done just enough over these past few weeks to keep me dangling on a string. We’d even had one more night together, but it hadn’t compared to what had gone on before, and I was sad to find myself relieved to be back in my own bed. But I still cared for her. She was young and lovely and when in the right mood, could make me laugh with just a flash of her eyes and a sharp remark. Unfortunately, those moods were few and far between. “Wow,” she said again, this time staring straight at the screen.

  “It’s only a bloody dog.” Nigel was leaning against the back wall, feigning disinterest. I think he was disgruntled because even Daniel and Mike had been livened up by its arrival, and so for the last fifteen minutes he’d avoided the sweaty throng around the monitors, putting himself in voluntary isolation at the back, making sure we could all sense his displeasure.

  “Au contraire, Nigel.” George lit his pipe. “It is not just a bloody dog. Firstly, it’s very much alive, and I doubt I’m the only one that has noticed the distinct lack of livestock roaming around.”

  “Remember the fucking cats at the farm?”

  Jane didn’t blink at John’s expletive, but bounced excitedly on Rebecca’s lap. “They were all dead. All the animals were dead. All the ones we saw, anyway!”

  “That’s right, Jane.” George winked at her. “So, firstly it’s alive. Secondly, it’s sitting outside this fence, as if it somehow knows we’re inside, although how the hell a dog could tell a thing like that I don’t understand. Thirdly, and most importantly, I think we’ll all agree,” he puffed steadily for a second or two, “it’s surrounded by widows, who are keeping what seems to be a safe distance from it, with no apparent intentions to attack. And the dog doesn’t even care that they’re there.” He paused. “So, let’s leave the ‘It’s only a bloody dog’ remarks for another time, and perhaps another dog.”

  Nigel may have abandoned the full suit look, but he still wore stiff shirts and trousers with his polished slip-on shoes; as he pursed his lips he looked almost effeminate, the thin sheen of sweat that appeared on his receding hairline an obvious sign that George had got to him.

  “Well, if you’ve got all the answers, then what do you suggest we do? Open the door to save a bloody dog and get ourselves killed?” He snorted with disgust.

  George stared at him calmly for a few seconds before turning his attention back to the small screen. Although he was three people back, his height meant he could see the patient animal sitting on its haunches in the TV screen quite clearly.

  “I’ll tell you what I think we should do.” He didn’t look at us, but kept his eyes on the calmly still border collie and the platoon of widows that moved around it. “I think we should watch and wait. If it’s still sitting there in a couple of hours without those things touching it, then I think it’s worth the risk to get it in.”

  “And what if they attack it between now and then?” Maine waved his cigarette dangerously close to Rebecca’s hair. He’d told us in Woburn that he used to have a dog, and it was obvious watching him now that he had a real soft spot for man’s best friend.

  “Well,” George raised an eyebrow on his worn face, “if they attack and kill it, then at the end of the day, it’s only a bloody dog. It’s a new world we’re living in, Oliver. You know that. We’ve got to be tough.” He smiled kindly. “But somehow I get the strange feeling that this dog’s going to be just fine.” He turned away. “In the meantime, I think I’ll do my duty taking a stroll around the perimeter. My joints could use it. You fancy joining me, Oliver? It’ll make the time pass quicker.”

  Maine was hesitant, but George’s almost parental tone was too persuasive. “Sure.” Picking up his fags, he grinned. “Probably about time I did my bit to help the aged.”

  I noticed he still threw a quick glance over his shoulder before he left, though. That dog and its fate were going to be on his mind the whole way round.

  As it was, the dog stayed on everyone’s mind during those two hours. We decided to carry on as normal with our routines, but I figure each one of us peered into the comms room for a least one check during that time. John was on watch and his bladder must have been bursting, because no one had ever had so many cups of tea brought to them. And every person that popped in came out with the same silly grin and two words.

  “Still there.”

  Having finished cooking up a shepherd’s pie for dinner, I was mopping the floor when Jane and Rebecca came in. Her eyes shining, Jane grinned and planted her hands on her young hips.

  “Time’s up! Are we going to keep the dog? Are we? Do you think it’s still out there? Do you?”

  Rebecca smiled at me and I grinned back, neither of us needing sign language to share our warmth at the little girl’s enthusiasm. Despite the problems with Katie and Jane’s insistence that she smelled funny, it was great to see how Jane was coping. She’d buoyed up a bit after we’d heard the rumour about the camp of children up north, and although that sounded a touch too far-fetched to be true to me, her eyes had started to sparkle a little more with the hope that one day she might meet someone her own age. And children always cope better with change than adults do. They adapt much quicker than grown-ups, their imaginations allowing them to, their young minds not yet settled into the routines of a comfortable world. And Jane was living proof of that.

  She humphed at me, expecting an answer. “Well, do you?”

  I leaned the mop against the wall and trod carefully across the wet tiles to join them. “Yes, I do think he’s still out there. If he wasn’t, I’m sure John would have said something.”

  “Then come on!” She dragged me by one hand and Rebecca by the other across the grass and we stumbled giggling and laughing into the hut. Katie had crossed from the dorm and watched us from the top of the steps, her green eyes hard.

  “How cosy.” She whispered the words icily as I walked past, low enough so that Jane didn’t hear. For the first time, I ignored her. She had no right to be bitter. Maybe it did hurt seeing Jane so wrapped up in other people, but it wasn’t as if she were taking much interest in her little sister. From what I could make out, she hadn’t even asked Jane to share a room with her. All Katie seemed interested in was sleeping and spending time by herself. And she sure as hell couldn’t be jealous of Rebe
cca and I laughing together. She may have still been more my friend than she was anyone else’s, but that really wasn’t saying much these days. No, I figured she just didn’t like to see us all happy for a moment without it having anything to do with her. And that was just bitchy.

  Leaving her behind, I followed Rebecca and squeezed in close to where John was sitting by the controls. He was smiling and shaking his head slightly.

  “The little bastard’s just sat there the whole time. He hasn’t moved. Amazing.”

  “What about the widows?” Whitehead was further back, having just joined the rest of us, and couldn’t see the screen.

  “They’re still out there, but they’ve backed off. Look. They’ve pulled back about thirty yards. A couple have gone over the hedgerows on the other side of the road. They’re still there, but not exactly looking like they’re thinking of attacking. It’s like they’ve gone back to normal sentry duty.”

  Sentry duty was what we had come to call the behaviour of the widows that we saw. It seemed that as we watched them, there was always a presence of ten to fifteen of them that watched us, as if reminding us that they knew we were here and were just keeping an eye on us while they wreaked havoc on the rest of the world. They weren’t always the same widows, we were sure of that. As we did our share of duties, so the widows appeared and went in shifts.

  “So, are we going to go and get it?” Maine looked like a man about to explode.

  As usual, we all found ourselves turning to George for an answer.

  “Yes. It would seem that we are.”

  Jane shrieked with excitement, rushing over to Maine and hugging him, completely overwhelming the older man before letting him breathe enough to hug her back.

  Daniel took over at the desk ready to open the gates just a fraction, while John, Chris, George and I walked down to get the dog in. Dave had taken Jane to go and find some appropriate food for it, with strict instructions that my just-made shepherd’s pie did not fit into that category. Nigel had stayed silent during the discussions and Jeff and Dean’s loyalty to him became clearer when they disappeared with him to the dorm, obviously wanting no part in the excitement. Dean seemed more hesitant, but still went with them. To be honest, it was better without them. I wouldn’t have wanted Nigel alongside me, and especially not armed.