Breeding Ground

by Sarah Pinborough

  “You fucking bitch! What makes you so fucking special, you freak?” He screamed at her as he broke into a trot, but the words were lost in her silent world, as was the sound of the shot when I calmly put a bullet in his chest. He crumpled instantly, dead and surprised, his part in this nightmare suddenly very over.

  When I pulled my eyes back up from his oozing chest, everything was quiet. Nigel sobbed quietly on the ground, but the third widow had gone, probably escaping over the fence, not wanting to take Chester on. My head pounded. Would Chester’s blood have the same effect as Rebecca’s? Was it because of their deafness that this happened? Could it be as simple as that?

  Chris jogged past me and knelt down by Michael, checking for a pulse. I could have told him not to bother, but I guessed we needed to go through these routines.

  “He’s gone.”

  I nodded, ignoring the dead man, and headed over to the injured one. John and George had appeared, maybe they had been there during those mad few minutes, but I didn’t know. John took his T-shirt off, wrapping it round Rebecca’s arm before they, too, headed towards Nigel.

  He was pale and sweating, sitting up now, staring at the gaping wound in his leg.

  “Oh, God, it hurts. Oh, God.” He looked up at us, his eyes wide. “We need to wash it quickly, get the stuff out. Don’t we? It’ll be all right, won’t it? Won’t it?”

  I looked down at his ripped calf again and then at the grass, thinking about Dave and all that stuff that oozed out of him. That stuff that filled his insides. No, it wasn’t going to be all right for Nigel. Not at all.

  “What are we going to do?” George’s voice was quiet and calm, but full of dread. He knew as well as I did what had to be done.

  “I’ll do it.” John took the gun out of my limp hand, but before he could even lift it, Chester growled, stepping in front of the sobbing man. What the fuck was he doing?

  “Get the fuck out of the way, dog.”

  Rebecca stepped forward, taking her place alongside Chester, blocking any chance of a shot. Shaking her head angrily, she lifted her arm, and wincing with pain signed at George, her fingers trembling as she worked through the words, he occasionally signalling to her to slow down, or repeat something. The colour on his own face drained as she finished.

  “They’re right. We can’t shoot him.” Behind them, Nigel’s breathing was heavy with relief and tears.

  “Why the hell not? That thing bit him. It’s the fucking humane thing to do.”

  George stared at him. “I know.”

  John wasn’t the only one that was confused. I was too tired for this. Jane was gone. So was Oliver Maine. There was too much to take in.

  “So what’s the problem? What was Rebecca saying to you?” My signing was getting better, but there was no way I was up to conversations and translating her at full speed.

  George and Rebecca stared at each other for a moment before he stepped away from Nigel a few feet, signalling for us to follow him. Phelps wasn’t going anywhere. Despite his injury, he was probably capable of walking, but the shock had drained him. I doubted he would have been listening even if George spoke to us right next to him.

  The old man tapped his top pocket and sighed, finding no pipe there. “God, I could use a smoke right now.” He looked at John and Chris and then his eyes rested on mine.

  “I think it’s got something to do with that collective consciousness thing that the widows have. When Rebecca grabbed that thing’s leg and it was dying, she could see images from it. Maybe because it was dying it was sending them out stronger, you know, like life flashing before your eyes, and maybe because it was here with us it sent out the images that it did.”

  I was tired of being surprised by the widows and what they could do. “And what did it send? What did she see?”

  George’s eyes drifted away slightly, as if he were seeing it all for himself instead of through Rebecca’s signing. “It was about Nigel. What happened in his house.”

  “And?” John sounded like he wanted to hear, but didn’t. I felt the same way.

  “I think it was pretty similar to what happened to you, Matt. She had him frozen against the wall of the house, just like he said she did, and there was the moment of release, when the widow came out of her, just like he said there was.”

  “So? What’s the problem?”

  “Emma was there, too.” He didn’t look at our shocked expressions, but stared at the crying man on the grass not so far away from where we were standing.

  “She’d come home from school and she’d been in the house when it all started, that power slamming them into the wall and holding them there. She was beside Nigel, trapped and terrified, unable to move or speak for all those hours, and then had to endure seeing that thing slither out of her mother, killing what was left of her with its birth.”

  Watching George swallow, I could feel the dryness in my own throat. What I had been through was awful and terrifying, but I was at least a grown-up. And although I’d had to see our child dead on the kitchen floor, I hadn’t had to suffer seeing the widow come out of her. I knew my Chloe had let me go before then. How the hell had it been for Emma?

  Coughing slightly, George continued softy. “And in that few seconds after it had come out, while it adjusted to the world and itself, the grip let go of them. But they were both too stiff and numb to run away. You commented on that, Matt, when Nigel first told us his story. You said how lucky he was to have been able to run straight away because you could barely stand. He bit your head off. Do you remember?”

  I nodded, feeling my stomach churning. I could sense where this story was going but I needed to hear it for myself. We all did.

  “Nigel had pins and needles that slowed him down as he stood up, and Emma was numb with cold and cramp. She was crying for him to pick her up and so he did. By this time the widow was up on its legs, I should imagine showing none of the clumsy awkwardness that young farm animals do, and it hissed at them, coming forward. Nigel tried to step backwards, but his legs just wouldn’t move, they wouldn’t coordinate, especially with the girl in his arms, and the thing was coming closer and closer, and then he did it. He threw his daughter at it, and as she screamed while the widow began to devour her, he fell to his knees and crawled out of the house. All the time with her shrieking out for him to save her.”

  “Just like what he did with Jane.” I could barely squeeze the words out.

  “Uh-huh. And Rebecca, and, crazy as it sounds, Chester, are right. That’s why we can’t shoot him.”

  What did he mean we couldn’t shoot him? He had no chance of surviving, that much we did know. Surely it would be better. . . . The thought stopped suddenly as my throat tightened with the realisation of what they meant. I stared at John, his face a reflection of my own shaking acknowledgment, and then I looked away. Chris had already turned to face Nigel.

  “I agree.”

  Jesus. Would this be justice? Not to put him out of his misery, but to let him suffer in agony as that stuff took hold? The coldness of our new life washed over me with the memory of Jane and Oliver Maine and all the damage this man had caused. Yes, maybe this would be justice for them. Or at least a little payback. Staring at George and Rebecca, her dark eyes hard, I felt horror at ourselves and what we were about to do, but also horror at what had happened, at what he had done to his own child.

  “Let’s get on with it, then.”

  Chris turned and met my eye. “I know where we can put him.”

  John and I hauled the sweating man to his feet, draping his arms around our shoulders for support and letting his legs drag as we walked.

  “Are you going to amputate my leg?” he spoke breathily within his sobs, but I couldn’t look at him. “Maybe it’ll work better because we’ll catch it quickly. Is that what we’re going to do?” I could feel his warm breath against my cheek as he sought out some response from someone, anyone.

  Dawn was past now and the temperature rose in the muggy air. I wanted to get in the
shower and wash the feel of him off me. I wanted to wash it all away. When no one answered him, Nigel started to cry again, his sobs getting louder as we turned away from where the infirmary was.

  Finally, we came to an outhouse about a hundred yards behind the dorm. It was obviously part of the original buildings and it was made of stone with a thick wooden door that needed a shove to open it, even after it was unlocked. Nigel was making a mewling sound and I was sure there were words mixed up with it, but I didn’t want to hear them. His sweat smelled sharp with fear, and although I felt that this was the right thing for us to do, I just wanted it to be over.

  The air inside was musty and dark, but there was a single bed in the corner and a toilet and a sink.

  “What is this place?” John whispered the question as we ushered the dead weight inside, setting him down on the bed. He didn’t try and move or get out, but dropped his head, his shoulders shaking as he cried.

  “It’s the closest thing we have here to a prison cell.” The normality in Whitehead’s voice chilled me. “It’s not been used in years. I don’t really know why it’s still here. We can bring him some food and water down to see him through.”

  “How long do you think it will take?” George looked at me, asking the question, all of us talking as if Nigel weren’t really there. It was easier that way.

  “Who knows? Maybe fetch enough supplies for a couple of weeks.” I hoped to hell it wouldn’t take that long, for our sakes if not for his.

  We all waited there silently for Chris to return with a rucksack full of supplies, none of us wanting to make anyone else be the last one there, to alone have to go back in with the food and water and then lock the door behind them. Even Rebecca, pale and still bleeding, waited, leaning against the wall, Chester by her side. We’d all reached the conclusion that this was what had to be done, and we needed to see it through together. A new order had taken hold and our old laws no longer applied. I think this was the first day that we accepted that. Maybe we were slower than the survivors in the rest of the country, but then maybe at Hanstone we’d had it easier than them.

  We waited there until Chris had placed the bag on the floor in front of the bed, and then without a word we turned, walked out and locked the door. I never saw Nigel Phelps again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It all happened much more quickly than it had with Dave, probably because this time we didn’t even try to get rid of the stuff or stop it spreading. It was only four days before Nigel started to scream, and then he screamed for a further three. Until then, he had shouted occasionally, full of anger and obscenities before breaking down into cries and sobs, but the screaming was something else, cutting through the heavy air and scratching on the inside of our skulls.

  We’d found a CD player and took to playing The Rolling Stones loudly, concentrating hard on listening and singing emptily along, and although it gave us temporary relief in the dorm, everywhere else there was no escape. We kept ourselves occupied with the mundane occupation of survival in a quiet haze, no energy for any real communication, not while Nigel was so busy dying so loudly.

  Dean proved no problem to us. He’d been relieved when Jeff had come in and taken over the gate, and Daniel was pretty bashed up with broken ribs and nose. I don’t think it was just his bones that were broken. That angry fire had gone out in his eyes, and whatever spirit was left in them faded with each of Nigel’s tortured outbursts, slowly becoming more muffled, but no less disturbing as the hours ticked by. We stayed out of his way, and he out of ours, and that arrangement seemed to suit. After all that had happened it was difficult to maintain levels of hate and there was no more real animosity between us. None of us had the energy for it.

  Chris kept himself busy with blood samples from Rebecca and Chester and found that both worked like acid on the widows. It seemed that the simple genetic defect that had probably been a curse to them throughout their lives up to this point was now what made them the envy of every other survivor on the planet. Was that what the army had discovered? Was that the blood that they had been spraying the streets of London with? We could only guess. Maybe there were others as well whose blood worked in the same fashion. I hoped so for all our sakes.

  Working long hours, his face a mask of concentration, maybe the only one of us who could block out those awful wails from time to time, Chris tried various dilutions of it to see how effective it could be. If we were going to use it as any kind of weapon, the supply wasn’t endless and there was only so much it was safe for either of them to give up at any time.

  It was on day two of the screaming that I ended up in Rebecca’s bed, holding her tight, and on the morning of day three we made love for the first time, slowly and naturally curled up under the sheets together. It had none of the animal urgency of that time in the bathroom with Katie, but it was pure and sweet and felt right.

  When the screaming finally stopped nobody mentioned it. Neither did anyone volunteer to go in and bring his cocooned body out. But we did decide that justice had been done and it was time to remember our dead.

  We stood in the rain, and quietly, with a gravitas that only he amongst us had, George spoke about them all, each in turn, ensuring we protect them in our memories for however long we had left ourselves. He talked of Jane’s bravery and Katie’s quick tongue and impish looks. He talked of Dave’s solidity and strength and the childlike good humour of Maine that disguised his own courage, the courage that had led him so fearlessly into his own death. We would remember them all, and carry them with us through whatever the future held for us that were left behind. It was a sober, quiet afternoon, but we did what was needed and it was time, after that, to let them rest. It was either that or go mad hankering after the past, after what was over and done with, untouchable and out of reach.

  The man in London had gone, and although we still tried occasionally, we didn’t really hope to hear any more of him. I liked to think that he had found the army boys and was busy with them purging the streets of widows like some mad Rambo character from a bad eighties movie, but who knew? I liked that thought better than him screaming like Nigel, and so I clung to it.

  We weren’t manning the radios twenty-four/seven ourselves anymore; our enthusiasm had dwindled with our numbers and the airwaves were depressingly quiet except for the odd crackly reception of a broadcast that there was a colony of children near Edinburgh. Whoever was transmitting it wasn’t receiving, only sending, and for all we knew it was just an old recording playing on a loop.

  Our quiet safety had been broken, and there was a sense that we were just stagnating, waiting to eke out whatever existence we had left, the feeling already making me come round to the idea that I couldn’t stay, when two things happened to secure the thought in my head.

  The first was that Rebecca discovered she was pregnant, and happy as we both were, we decided to keep that news to ourselves for a while. The second wasn’t so good.

  It was only about nine-thirty, but we were going to bed earlier and earlier then, or at least relaxing in the dorm whiling away our time, trying to avoid the empty ticking of the hours of our lives by hiding in the cosiest of our rooms. In many ways, I imagined that this is what prisoners of war had felt like way back in the forties, loads of routines filling up their days, but no real sense of anything gained. Rebecca was reading a book in our room and I was losing badly at chess to Chris when John came in from outside and called me over to the far side of the room. Dean and Daniel were already asleep. They didn’t talk much even to each other by then, and I wondered how they could sleep at all with the memory of their involvement in what happened to Jane and Oliver Maine.

  Leaving Chris to contemplate his next killer move, I padded quietly over to where John waited. As I got closer I could see that he was pale and shaking, sucking on his cigarette hard. “Matt, I need you to come and look at something.”

  “What?”

  “Come in here. I don’t want to show you in front of everyone.”

  Li
ghting a cigarette of my own, I followed him into the clinical whiteness of the large bathroom. “So, what’s up mate?”

  “This.” His eyes wide with dread, he lifted up his T-shirt. “Tell me what the fuck that is.”

  His thin chest had three large lumps in it and a variety of smaller ones close by. As I stood there staring, I was sure that I saw one move slightly, or grow bigger. My stomach ripped its way to my throat. What now? What the fuck now?

  “I’m not liking the look on your face, mate. Not one fucking bit.” Smoking hard, John moved slightly from foot to foot, his anxiety stopping him from standing still.

  Using the excuse of dragging on my own cigarette to squint and therefore not meet his gaze, I dropped my view back to his exposed midriff. Reaching out, not wanting to touch but really needing to know how it felt, I gently pressed against the largest of the irregular boils, which stretched the skin thin over his pale torso. Something unpleasant gave slightly under my fingers, but I could feel gristle in it, and maybe liquid. Something not nice. John winced and I pulled my hand away.

  “That hurt?”

  “Hurt’s not really how I’d describe it. It’s more like just fucking weird. Like something tugging at me. What the fuck is it?” Despite the coarseness of his language, his voice wavered with fear.

  Not answering, I stared at it. This wasn’t like the string stuff that had come out of Dave. This was more like Chloe and Katie. But how could that be? John wasn’t a girl, and looking at him, it wasn’t like he was getting fat, it was just the lumps. But these lumps were harder, more defined than that female change had been.

  “We’ve got to tell the others, John. This isn’t normal.”

  “I knew it.” He rolled his eyes. “I fucking knew it. I’m gonna fucking die, aren’t I?”