by Gary McMahon
When he reached the apartment block he had a gut feeling that he’d already missed them. His initial thought was that Sally had killed her husband, but then another idea struck him. What if the man had not even found her, and she was roaming the area for prey?
He parked the moped and ran into the building through the unlocked main entrance, ready to bolt if anyone approached from behind the closed apartment doors. He heard somebody weeping, saw a discarded child’s doll in a corner, smelled the bland aroma of gas – the result of some poor bastard putting their head in the oven or gassing their children as they slept. He wondered, if he kicked down a few of these doors, would he find behind one of them a family curled up together like sleeping animals, their faces blue and elongated, their knuckles white as they’d clutched each other in their death throes?
To Daryl, the whole idea of suicide had always seemed like an easy way out, an escape route that offered nothing but brief pain followed by infinite darkness. And besides, he thought, if you topped yourself you might miss all the fun when all the idiots who claimed to care but never really did found you dead.
The door to Sally’s apartment was open. He knew the place was empty even before he stepped inside. The floor beside the sofa was littered with bloody bandages: they lay in a coiled heap, like the shed skin of an ugly snake. A lot of the kitchen drawers and cupboards were open, their contents spilled out onto the floor. Someone had packed in a hurry.
In the bedroom, behind the main door, a wardrobe hung open. The back wall of the wardrobe contained a wooden hatch, which was also ajar. Daryl reached out and pulled it fully open. He saw a couple of leather gun holsters and some empty ammunition boxes on a shelf, but nothing more.
“So,” he said, impressed. “You think you can save her?” Shaking his head in the mirror on the dresser. “And I thought I was fucked up.”
Daryl went through a chest of drawers, upending each drawer until he came to one containing women’s undergarments. He ran his hands through her underwear, bringing up to his face sports briefs, thongs, lacy dress-up panties with see-through gussets: a cornucopia of knickers that sent him reeling back on his heels.
Raking with his fingers to the back of the drawer, he discovered an old threadbare pair of granny knickers with a stained crotch. These, he thought, must be the pair she wears when she’s on her period. Oh, God... he held them up to his nose, inhaled, and took in the coppery scent that still clung stubbornly to the worn material.
Grabbing a second pair – blue, frilly, scanty – he retreated to the bed, where he lay down on his back and loosened his trousers. He was already hard, so began to stroke himself, wrapping the blue panties around his fist. The other pair – the stained, dark-gusseted period pants – he pressed against his nose, pushing his finger against them and into one nostril.
He tried hard enough, but was unable to climax. Even the scent of her blood didn’t do it. He came close when he recalled cutting off her face, but the memory remained at a distance, too far away to engage with.
Disgusted with himself, Daryl stood and pulled up his trousers. He tossed the underwear into a corner, pretending that it did not exist.
He heard Mother’s voice in his ear, her awful brittle laughter; then he felt her warm breath on his neck as she whispered to him that she was the only girl he would ever need and hers was the only true love he could know...
“No!” His voice hung in the air, a mockery of negation, a sad, wasted energy that even now seemed weak and inconsequential.
Blocking out the ancient memory, he left the room and surveyed the living area. The laptop was dead, the TV lifeless. The lights were out. The local electricity supply must have been interrupted, either by the dead or by vandals. If he was honest, the only difference between these two groups was the hunger... they were identical in every other way: mindless, moronic creatures with no real purpose to their existence. Only the form of their hunger differed.
He spotted on the coffee table, by the window, a pair of leather gloves. Slim, brown, obviously belonging to a woman: Sally’s gloves. He strode over and picked them up, forced them onto his small hands. The fit was tight, but they were not uncomfortable. He stroked his cheek with her fingers, licked the end of her thumb. The old, faded leather smelled wonderful.
Daryl left the apartment and descended the hollow staircase. Outside, he climbed back on the moped and thought about where they might be heading. He glanced away from the city, along the new blacktop road that led towards the motorway. Lights flickered in the distance, beyond the trees. He glanced at his hands, wrapped up tight in Sally’s gloves. He imagined that they were still warm from her flesh.
Revving the small engine, he set off, certain that he had not seen Sally Nutman for the last time, and that their paths would eventually cross again. He did not know where this certainty originated, but he trusted it implicitly. If he was honest, there was little else to do now but follow such hunches. Who knew where they might lead, and what blood-filled adventures he might experience?
Once again, just to occupy his racing mind, he imagined the titles of the popular paperback volumes that would never be written about him: Kill Me Again, Death in Double Doses, Murderer of the Living Dead...
If anyone living had been around to hear it, the high, whooping sound of his laughter would certainly have chilled them to the core. This thought, when it came to him, just made him laugh all the more.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MOTION EMPTY DULL voice engine what how hunger hunger taste dry empty live not dead not something sweet dark inside forever hungry forever hungry pain release rage hunger hungry
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I’LL FIND A way to get you to safety.” Rick barely believed his own words, and wondered if he was speaking them to soothe his fears or those he imagined for Sally. She sat beside him, her hands limp, the seatbelt forming a tight diagonal band across her stomach and chest, saying nothing.
“I promise you, honey. We’ll get to safety somehow.”
Darkness fell from the dusky sky, wide drapes being lowered over the top of an open coffin, hiding from sight whatever had been laid to rest inside.
I know. I know you will.
He screwed shut his eyes, fighting against a force he didn’t want to confront, and when he opened them again he saw lights in the distance. About a mile along the road, off the main route, tall lampposts were still shining. When he passed the signpost he realised what the lights represented: a service station. He glanced at the petrol indicator on the dashboard: still almost half full. Or half empty, he thought, depending on your point of view.
These days Rick was definitely a half empty kind of guy.
His hands gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, and he kept his eyes locked dead ahead. He’d seen no sign of life (or death, or any other state of existence) since leaving the apartment block behind, but he couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t some danger lurking at the side of the road, just waiting to pounce.
Anything that strayed into the road – be it human or otherwise – he was simply planning to mow down. There was a specialised impact bumper on the front end of the Nissan, and he fully intended to test it.
The clouds smothered the sky, breaking apart into rough-edged stains. The stars were nowhere to be seen, as if even they had given up the hope of illuminating mankind. Everything felt fragile, temporary, as if something was rapidly approaching an end.
Rick tensed when he heard gunshots. They didn’t sound too close, but if he could hear them it was close enough to cause concern. Considering his passenger, he needed to be wary of everyone – especially some gun-toting broth-head who thought the best way to sort out this situation was by shooting anything and everything in sight.
The stark service station lights loomed closer. One of them flickered, but the rest remained constant, bathing the concrete forecourt in a harsh white glow that hurt Rick’s eyes when he looked directly at it. He eased the Nissan off the main road and guided it onto the
forecourt, checking the immediate area for signs of potential danger.
He drew level with the first petrol pump and switched off the engine. As he listened to the mechanism cooling, he strained to hear anything beyond the faint clicking. There was nothing, not even the song of night birds or the thrum of an overhead police helicopter. The world felt empty, a huge open space waiting to be filled with death.
“I won’t be long,” he said, opening the car door.
I won’t go far.
He smiled, but the expression felt horrible as it spread across his face, like a badly healed scar opening up to infection.
Rick unlocked the petrol cap and slipped the nozzle into the slot. He pressed the lever, hoping for the best, and felt like cheering when he felt the hose tug against his grip as fuel poured into the tank. He remained stationary, scared to move his hand even a millimetre in case it stifled the flow of fuel – a silly, superstitious action, but nonetheless one to which he clung until the tank was full.
He gazed at the back of Sally’s head through the window, inspecting the wrappings for signs of leakage. They looked fine, and when he pulled the fuel hose out of the tank he managed to drag his eyes away from her.
He was just about to climb back into the car when he was halted by the sight of the small shop attached to the service station. It was the kind of thing he saw every day, a small grocery store stocked with everyday provisions, ready-made sandwiches, vehicle maintenance accessories, and hot and cold beverages.
Rick shut the door and walked across the forecourt, Glock in hand, eyes skinned and expecting an assault. He reached the main entrance unmolested, and gently pushed open the glass door. A buzzer sounded somewhere deep inside the bright one-storey building, and he clenched his teeth in anticipation of sound and fury and bloodlust. None came. So he stepped into the shop.
Overhead fluorescent lights droned like insects; his feet slapped on the smooth tiled floor; the door whispered shut behind him, once again setting off that damned buzzer.
Rick paused, dropped down below eye level, and waited.
Be ready for anything, he thought. Any-fucking-thing. It was something Hutch had often said during their army training; a lesson they’d both learned together but that only Rick was still alive to follow.
He could hear the low, maudlin murmuring of a refrigerator unit, and moved slowly towards it. He could do with stocking up on bottled water. In a few days the stuff would be worth more than gold. Unless someone had been here first and cleared the shelves, he could fill up any large bag he found with bottles and then get the hell out of there and back on the road. A few sandwiches would be good, too; maybe some chocolate bars.
Rick’s mouth began to moisten at the thought. When had he last eaten?
The shelves around him were fully stocked: bread, a few canned goods, biscuits and family-packs of kettle chips. It looked like this place was so out of the way that it had been missed, or perhaps there were simply no looters in the area. At least not yet.
Places like this held a strange atmosphere when they were emptied of people. It was like the entire building was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen or someone to arrive. The effect was unnerving; it made Rick feel a strange mélange of paranoia and vertigo, as if he were falling through miles of empty sky into a giant, silently waiting mouth.
Rick tried to recall if he’d noticed the service station before, but had no memory of it. He’d lived here for two years, so must have passed the station countless times without ever really noticing it. Like most of the commercial trappings of modern life, he’d simply taken it for granted, not seeing it until he actually needed it, as if his desire had summoned it from the greyness of non-being and brought it forward to supply him with whatever he required. And wasn’t that just the purest metaphor for a consumer society? The common magic of need.
Rick didn’t even realise he’d heard the tiny sound until his gun hand twitched, drawn in its direction as if magnetised. It was followed by a low whisper, hushed words of warning to whoever had made the initial sound.
He moved along the narrow aisle, crouching, with both hands on the handle of the Glock.
The shuffling of feet on the polished floor; followed by a small voice, almost a stifled cry. Then silence, but not enough of it, and what little there was seemed haunted by the words already spoken, however quietly.
He saw them before he even reached the end of the aisle, folded into a corner next to the coffee machine. An old man and a young girl, reflected in the convex security mirror on the wall next to the lavatory door. Rick relaxed when he saw them, allowing the tension to leave his arm and the gun to drop a fraction.
“Listen to me,” he said, trying to infuse his voice with authority. “I’m a police officer. I mean you no harm, but I am armed, so I’d strongly advise against any sudden or threatening moves.”
In the mirror, the stunted image of the man wrapped his arms around the girl, who looked up into his face, her eyes wide and wet. Small freckled face; a question mark-shaped cluster of those freckles on her right cheek.
“I promise you that I do not want to hurt you. I repeat: I mean you no harm.” He paused, allowing them time for the information to sink in.
“Okay. We’re coming out. We’re unarmed, and I have a little girl here – my granddaughter. She’s... she’s very scared.”
Rick felt his body relax; he let out the breath he’d been holding. “I assure you, sir, I don’t want to hurt anyone. Just step out where I can see you and we can talk.”
The reflection nodded, and then stood awkwardly, as if the man’s aging limbs were stiff. The two of them walked out from the end of the aisle, hand in hand. Their steps were small, tentative, and Rick lowered the gun to assure them once again that he was not an enemy.
The man raised a hand, a nervous half-smile on his lips.
“Hi,” said Rick, standing and returning the Glock to its holster. “My name’s Rick Nutman, and I’m just here to get some supplies.”
The man shuffled forward, keeping himself between Rick and the girl. Rick admired that. It was a simple gesture, but one that told him a lot about the man’s character.
“Is there anyone else here?” Rick nodded towards the back of the shop.
“No,” said the old man. “I suspect the cashier legged it when things started to get weird. We found the door unlocked, so we came in for a while. Just getting supplies, the same as you.”
His grin was a desperate lunge for approval.
“I’m Stan Rohmer, and this is my granddaughter Tabitha... Tabby.” He walked forward with that same hand now outstretched in an awkward greeting.
“Good to meet you,” said Rick shaking the hand and smiling at the girl. She peered out from behind her grandfather’s leg, yet to be convinced that it was safe to come out.
“We’ve been hiding out from... well; I assume you’ve seen them for yourself.” Rohmer was a tall man. His limbs were rangy, almost gangly and his back was bowed, giving him the appearance of being much shorter than he actually was.
“The dead people,” said the girl, stepping out from behind Rohmer. “We’re hiding from the dead folks.”
“I’ve seen them,” said Rick, once more crouching down, but this time to meet the girl at her own level. “Hello, Tabby. I’m glad you found somewhere safe to hide.”
“Oh, it was Granddad’s idea. He’s very clever.”
Rick smiled. Rohmer laughed, ruffling the girl’s reddish-brown hair with the palm of a long-fingered hand. His face was small, and he wore black-framed glasses that were so large they made his eyes look like those of a koala bear. They blinked almost comically as he spoke again: “I’m not that clever. If I was, we’d be far away from here.”
“Where are you headed?” Rick moved to the drinks cabinet as he spoke, filling a sports bag he casually picked up from a display with bottles of water.
Rohmer began to fill a second bag without being asked. “Down to the canal. We... I have a boat.”<
br />
Rick paused, turned to stare at the old man. His long grey hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and strands had come loose from the rubber band he’d used. Those huge eyes blinked. “Why are you telling me this? You don’t even know me. I could be lying about not wanting to hurt anybody.”
Rohmer placed a hand on Rick’s arm. He did not pull away. His long fingers twitched like pale stick insects. “Listen,” said the old man. “You have a car and I have a boat. We could help each other. You’re armed, and presumably know how to look after yourself. I’m an old fuck trying to look after the only thing of worth left in his life.” His eyes became larger, more desperate behind the comically thick lenses of his spectacles. He licked his lips.
Rick nodded. He glanced at the girl and nodded again. He and Sally had often discussed having children, and although neither of them had ever voiced an opinion, he knew for a fact that they both wanted a girl. “I’ll help you,” he said. “You and the child.”
Tabby looked at him, her gaze bold and unflinching. “Thank you, mister.”
They filled their bags and set them down by the door. Then they filled two more, and scoured the place for weapons. Rohmer found a baseball bat under the counter, and hefted it as he walked down the aisle towards the doors.
“Why can’t anyone have a cricket bat these days? Have we all become so Americanised that the good old willow is no longer the home security implement of choice?”
Rick grinned. He was beginning to like this old man.
They stood at the entrance and stared out at the forecourt, checking the shadows for movement. The long grass at the side of the service station undulated in a breeze, the trees shivered, the overhead telephone wires seemed to spin.
“Who’s that in the car?” Tabby tugged at his sleeve, her mouth dark with chocolate from the bar she’d opened as the two men filled the bags.
