Breeding Ground

by Sarah Pinborough

  “I know where the keys are.” Daniel was pulling his shirt back on. “I’ll come with you. I think the others will, too.”

  There was no need to ask which others he meant. The divide between us was becoming literal; the only one of the original Hanstone crew that would stay with us was Chris. That, however, seemed like a fair trade to me. We got the doctor and they got nutty Nigel. I only hoped tempers would have calmed down enough for everyone to carry on doing their shifts as usual by the morning. Our survival still very much depended on us being one unit, fatally fractured or not.

  The door shut a little too loudly behind them as the men trudged out into the night in search of their new home.

  “Good riddance to them,” Dave muttered under his breath, and bent down to tickle Chester behind his ears. The dog chuffed an almost bark, as if in agreement, before laying himself down a few feet from the door and closing his eyes. And that’s where he slept. We’d all expected him to go in with Rebecca, but he didn’t show any inkling to do so, and with Jane on the floor already that would have been too tight a squeeze, so his chosen spot on the floorboards was probably a wise move.

  That night, with Chester adding his snores to the collective, was the first in weeks that I wasn’t woken from my hellish almost-sleep by Katie trying to leave the dorm. She slept soundly, and did so every night for the next week. It was bliss.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “You’d better come and take a look at this.” Dean’s normally impassive face was showing edges of concern as he came into the dorm, his hooded lids furrowing over his dark eyes.

  “What is it?” I’d been on late patrol, and after crashing into bed I’d slept like a log, not even the sound of anyone else getting up stirring me, and when I’d opened my eyes it was past ten in the morning. Enjoying the rare peace of the empty sleeping quarters, I’d had a long, hot shower and was just pulling on my jeans when Dean had come in. I followed him out into the constant drizzle, heading towards the canteen.

  “I’m not really sure. I was just cleaning up after breakfast when him and Katie came in late.”

  “Who?”

  “Dave. He’s not looking good.”

  My heart sank. Dave had been doing so well—what the hell could have gone wrong now when he was pretty much all healed up?

  By the time we pulled the door open my T-shirt was sodden and my hair, still damp from the shower, was dripping down my forehead. This rain was becoming ridiculous in a slightly scary way. If the weather didn’t settle down soon, then it would seem that England was becoming a new tropical zone. Another sudden change that we had no control over.

  “So, what’s going on?”

  Dave was sitting with his back to me, Katie beside him. George was there, too, as yet unshaven, and Nigel and Mike hung back slightly behind him. There was no sign of Rebecca, and I presumed she must be out walking Chester with Jane.

  “What’s happening to me, Matt?” Dave twisted round to face me, his eyes wide with dread, and I could see why Rebecca had got Jane quickly out of the way. “Good Lord, what’s happening to me?”

  I took a step closer. Jesus. Jesus Christ. What was happening to him? When we’d cut his arm off, we thought we’d taken all the infection away with it, but we’d been so, so wrong. My stomach twisted as I stared, the enormity of what I was looking at making me want to vomit. Trying to keep the horror from my face, I examined him. Had it been spreading from his shoulder all these weeks, slithering along his muscles and tendons, creeping into his veins, working its way through his organs? How could he not have felt it? Just how involved with him was it?

  Dave sobbed slightly. “It’s stopping me seeing properly. I can see it in the corner of my eyes. I can’t concentrate on anything else.”

  The white strands that had characterised the widow’s bite on his arm were working inwards from the corners of his eyes, appearing from within the socket, clinging to the slippery surface, twisted miniature versions of the thick coils that had been draped across the pub, each thread reaching out for another on the opposite side of his eyeball. I looked down to his nose, where more of the sticky strings oozed out of each nostril, weaving through his dark thick hairs as they emerged, creeping down towards his lips.

  “It’s okay, mate. It’s okay.” I squeezed his good shoulder reassuringly, although it was obvious that things were far from okay. “Have you seen this stuff anywhere else?” As I asked the question I noticed more erupting from his ear, the strands working both upwards into his hair and down towards his neck. I could only presume it was coming in equal volume from the ear on the other side of his head. How had it appeared so fast?

  “Everywhere.” His words were a whisper, and it seemed that this stuff that was seeping out of him was no barrier to tears, his eyes flooding. “Everywhere it can get out of me, it is. Look.” He held up his hand. “It’s even coming out between my cuticles and my fucking fingernails.” He looked up at me in terror, the surface of his eyes looking like cracked ceramic where that stuff was covering them. “What’s it doing to me, Matt? What’s it going to do to me? What’s it fucking doing to me inside?”

  As he cried and sweated with fear, I thought I caught a vague whiff of something sickly and unpleasant coming from him, something that stopped me wanting to touch him or come too close. Was that what had driven Nigel and his groupies further back? Was that the same smell that Jane was talking about when she said that Katie smelled bad? It was a bad smell, that was for sure. There wasn’t a better word to describe it. I didn’t like the way I could almost taste it as it invaded the air in my mouth and lungs.

  Shaking the disgust off, I looked up at George. “What do you think?”

  The old man shook his head, the grey stubble on his chin making him look tired and worn. “I don’t know, Matt. I really don’t.”

  I bit my lip, wishing that I could give Dave some comfort, but finding little inside to relinquish. “How are you feeling? Are you feeling ill at all?”

  He shook his head, swallowing hard, trying to get his panic under control. “No, I feel okay. I feel fine. I think. Maybe a bit sick, but that might just be, you know, the shock.”

  “Good. That’s got to be a good sign.” I don’t know who I was trying to convince, me or him. I don’t think I was doing a very good job of either. “I’m going to go and try the radios. Maybe someone else has come across this as well.”

  Despite almost regular contact with the London boys and the scientists, as well as sporadic contact with some more intermittent survivors, we hadn’t really shared much of our individual adventures unless they might be useful. We’d told about Chester, because there was definitely something interesting in the way the widows had ignored him, but I couldn’t remember sharing the story of Dave’s bite and amputation. I guess now was the time for that.

  Taking over the controls and booting Jeff right out of the room, I brought the dial back to the frequency needed for contact with the men in Paddington. I hoped to hell that they were listening. Although in the beginning they’d manned the radio twenty-four/seven like we did, over the past couple of weeks it seemed that they’d reduced that a bit. It also seemed that a couple of voices were missing over the airwaves. We didn’t ask, and whoever was left there wasn’t volunteering the information, but I was pretty sure they weren’t faring as well as we were. Hanstone Park was pretty well-defended, and more than that, pretty well-stocked. I imagined that for those holed up elsewhere the day-to-day issues of getting food and water were far more hazardous.

  “Hello, London? Hello, London, are you there?” I figured the proper way was probably, Are you receiving, over, but who the hell cared any more about etiquette? It was communication that counted.

  “Hello, mate.” A tired voice with a south London drawl came back at me. Thank God there was someone there. “What’s up?”

  “We need some advice. Have any of your lot been bitten by a widow?”

  “Why?” There was a moment of hesitancy before the word, and I wasn’t
reassured by it.

  “Well, one of us sustained a bite over a month ago on our way here. Some white strands started to appear in the wound. We amputated his arm and he seemed to be getting better, but he got up this morning and that . . .” I searched for a word, “that shit is coming out of him everywhere. We don’t know what to do about it. He doesn’t feel ill, but this doesn’t look good. Any advice, or should I try the scientists?”

  The man at the other end laughed, but there was no humour in it. “The scientists won’t know shit. They don’t go out. Most of them are junkies now, anyway. Locked up with plenty of drugs and too much time on their hands—what else was going to happen?”

  I wondered if the slight slur in his voice was tiredness or alcohol.

  “Well, do you lot have any advice? Anything that might work on getting it to reduce?” Or at least stop coming out of him.

  “Yeah, I’ve got some advice.” He sighed so heavily into the radio that I could almost feel his breath. “Kill him.”

  The words were like a smack in the face. “What?”

  “Kill him. Trust me, it’ll be merciful. I’ve seen what’s going to happen to him. He won’t survive.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to speak. How the hell had we reached the stage that we could calmly discuss executing one of our friends? What the fuck had been going on in London?

  “I’m not sure we can do that.” I couldn’t keep the tremble out of my voice.

  “Then your friend has my sympathy and my prayers. I think, though, that you’ll change your mind pretty soon. When he starts screaming.”

  “Well, we’ll see.” I wanted this surreal conversation to be over.

  “Get back to me on how it turns out. Good luck.” His voice softened. “Look, sorry I didn’t break that to you better. Things have been . . . tough here.”

  “No problem, mate. I understand.” I didn’t understand and I didn’t want to understand. For a minute, as I sat there chewing my lip and regaining my composure before facing the others, I wondered who that man on the other end of the radio was. What had he been before this? A cabbie? An office worker? A fucking sandwich delivery boy? Who the hell knew? And who really cared anymore? He probably didn’t recognise himself any more than the rest of us did. All those years I’d spent behind a desk selling mortgages seemed like a hazy dream now. Even Chloe was part of an old world. A dead world.

  Hauling myself to my feet, I trudged back to the canteen. Someone had made tea, that old British favourite in times of crisis, and a mug had been left for me by where Dave and Katie were sitting.

  I shook my head. “They don’t know what it is. They haven’t had anyone suffer a bite.” There was only so far I could go with a lie, and this seemed the best option. I couldn’t pretend that all was going to be fine, because I wasn’t that good a liar.

  “None of them have been bitten?” Dave obviously wasn’t convinced.

  I shrugged, finding it hard to meet his infected eyes. “That’s what they said.”

  “So what the hell am I going to do?” He started to rock backwards and forwards. “Oh God, it’s going to kill me, isn’t it? It’s going to kill me from the inside out.”

  I looked at George, wanting him to take over this nightmare scene, but it seemed he couldn’t find any words. The problem was that we both believed what Dave was saying. This stuff was going to kill him, and there was nothing we could do about it but watch and wait.

  It was Katie that broke the silence, calm and cool and unexpected.

  “No. It’s not going to kill you. We’re not going to let that happen.” He was keening beside her, and she stroked his arm. She was either unaware of the smell that was coming off him or she was ignoring it well. “Look at me, Dave.”

  The gentle command in her voice slowed down his movements and he brought his eyes up to meet hers.

  “Now, you and me are going to go to the medical room and we are going to try every concoction of pills and lotions until we find the one that gets rid of this, okay? And I am going to stay right with you.”

  He nodded slowly. “But it won’t work, it won’t work. . . .”

  “You don’t know that. These things evolved from humans. Something will kill this stuff. We just need to find it. Trust me. I won’t let this kill you.”

  She was speaking so methodically that I almost believed her myself, despite what the man in London had said. How was she doing this? She’d gone from being royal pain in the ass to Florence Nightingale. Taking Dave’s arm, she got him to his feet with a gentleness I’d never seen in her.

  “Okay, guys, Dave and I have got some work to do.” She smiled at me and then at Chris. “Can you let us into the infirmary? And let me at the drugs?”

  Whitehead nodded. “I’ll let you in, but you’ve got to know that messing around with drugs is dangerous. You might do him more harm than good.”

  She raised an eyebrow at the doctor, clearly stating that doing Dave more harm than good wasn’t very likely given his current situation, and Chris shrugged.

  “Okay, okay. But be careful. If you’re not sure of something just ask.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to empty the cabinet down his neck. I’m going to try lotions, potions and antibiotics first. Come and get us at lunchtime.”

  “Katie . . .” I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to say to her, and she stopped by the door, looking over her shoulder at me and smiled.

  “Don’t worry, Matt. I know what I’m doing. Just let us get on with it, all right?”

  I nodded and let her go.

  A little before lunch, she popped her head into the dorm where I was lying down reading The Kraken Wakes. George had finally persuaded me to give it a go, and although given our present situation it was hardly light reading, it was pretty engaging stuff. I’d forgotten how therapeutic getting lost in someone else’s world could be.

  “You okay?”

  She smiled, but it wasn’t a victorious one, not that I expected it. All there was in the infirmary were the usual antiseptics and some antibiotics, and we’d tried Dave on those immediately after he’d been bitten. They hadn’t stopped the stuff coming out of the first wound, so they weren’t exactly going to make a difference now.

  “Yeah, fine. Dave doesn’t want to come over for lunch. I’m going to go and get us some food now and take it back, okay?”

  “Sure, no problem. Has he got worse?”

  “No, he just doesn’t want anyone staring at him. It freaks him out, and you can’t blame him.”

  “I understand.”

  She started to pull the door shut again. “So, you’ll make sure no one disturbs us then?”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell the others.”

  “Thanks.”

  As it was, when I sat down with my plate on the long bench, I decided Dave probably had the right idea not wanting to come over for lunch. It was a depressed and quiet affair of cold ham and salad. We were all subdued, and even Chester didn’t seem to care whether he got any scraps or not as he settled down in the gap between the girls chairs, sighing and snuffling, lying his head down between his paws. Even though I hadn’t shared what had really been said on the radio, I don’t think that if I had it would have made much difference. None of us believed that there was much hope for Dave, and as we sat there eating without any enthusiasm, it felt like we were on a death watch.

  The ham felt slimy and tasteless as I forced myself to chew on it. You’ll change your minds soon enough. When he starts screaming. I put my fork down and pushed my plate away. The silence was claustrophobic and the wet sounds of people methodically eating were making me feel nauseous.

  “You all right?” George was a few seats away, his fork paused on its journey to his mouth.

  “Just not very hungry. I’ve never been a salad man.”

  He stared at me for a moment, his eyes probing mine. “You know something we don’t?”

  “Nothing that’s going to make a difference, George, let’s just put it like that.”
/>
  He continued to look at me before sighing heavily and putting his forkful of ham down untouched. “You know, salad’s never really done it for me much, either. I think I’ll sit this out till dinner.” Pushing away from the table he stood up, leaving his plate where it was and walked slowly outside, filling his pipe as he did so.

  Rebecca’s brow furrowed and when I caught her eye, she signed slowly, He okay? I shrugged at her, not needing to put my pidgin ham-fisted efforts into practice to reply. I think my face was probably speaking pretty clearly for me. Were any of us okay? Sure as hell not Dave, and if we were honest, then all we were doing was sitting around and waiting for the screaming to start.

  Not wanting any company, I gave George a head start before I stepped out into the temporarily dry air and lit up a cigarette. I had a funny feeling that if anything was likely to kill me early, it wasn’t going to be fucking fags.

  The howling started at four-thirty, making me drop my book and leap up from my bed as the sound filled the air. It was loud and full of pain, but it wasn’t Dave, it was Chester. What the fuck was making the dog howl like that? My heart thumping, I raced out of the dorm without putting my shoes on and ran towards where I thought the noise was coming from. Had a widow got into the compound somehow? Had it bitten Chester? What the hell was making him howl like that, what the hell was it?

  As I ran through the overhanging branches of the trees, I saw him sitting in the clearing by the comms hut, his head thrown back letting out the heart-wrenching sound. John was coming equally fast from the direction of the canteen, and over in the distance even Nigel and Mike were jogging over from their new home in the other hut. The teenager reached him first, a few feet ahead of me.

  “What is it? What’s the matter with him?”

  “I don’t know. What the fuck is it, boy?” Between us we searched his fur for any sign of injury as the others gathered in a crowd.