dEaDINBURGH

by Wilson, Mark

  Despite their confinement and ingrained distrust of adults, The Sick Kids were very open about their lives and seemed happy. They wanted for little, despite looking very pale and sun-deprived to Alys eyes. She thought that she saw signs of rickets in a few of them and made a metal note to suggest that they use the gardens surrounding the hospital more frequently to soak up whatever sun Edinburgh had to offer. The grounds were secure enough for that.

  On returning to Ward One, Alys found Joey surrounded by most of the kids, animatedly telling stories about some of the people he’d met on his travels with Jock. The younger kids laughed until they were in tears, doubled over at his description of a guy he’d met who thought a panda was his wife. The teenagers were playing it cool, but she could tell that they’d been laughing too and would be repeating the tale to each other later in the day. Several of the older girls played with their hair and blushed every time Joey looked in their direction. All were amazed at his description of Jock as an old man, clearly astounded that he hadn’t turned.

  As the evening wore on, they asked The Sick Kids about the possibility of finding some medicine or other medical supplies in the building. The kids explained that they did have some supplies but had none to spare, insisting that they’d exhausted whatever stocks had been in the hospital to fill their own store.

  Irene turned out to be as nearly a good a storyteller as Joey. As the oldest she was in the odd position of being in charge, but also being next in line to have to leave according to the rules that The Sick Kids Lived by. She gave them the thirty-year history of The Sick Kids, guilelessly. Alys sensed that a lot of what had been passed down through each shortened generation had been lost or altered to the point where no one really knew anymore how they came to be the community they were.

  As Irene told it, the kids who’d established the boundaries and claimed the hospital as their own had been patients who’d been forced to fight for their lives against the very adults who’d been treating their illnesses just hours before. Irene explained to them that a small group of around fifteen had survived the initial outbreak. Witnessing mainly adults running around trying to eat kids, they assumed that adults were the only hosts and systematically cleared the hospital of all infected. Any kids who’d been bitten were either silenced or, more often, pushed out onto Sciennes Road. The founding kids essentially barricaded themselves in a little community, shunning all adults. They called them biters, but allowed other kids to enter the hospital once they’d been checked for bites.

  Once a Sick Kid’s eighteenth birthday came, within a few days they willingly left to save their family and friends from what they expected to turn into. When asked what became of the people who left and wandered out into the world without supplies, food, water, or any real survival skills, the kids looked puzzled and replied, “They just do what all the other biters do, they don’t need those things.”

  Alys had asked, “What if they don’t turn? What then?”

  “Every adult becomes a biter,” Natalie had said. The certainty of the fact made something break a little inside Alys. She didn’t reply. What could she say? They lived in an insular little world where kids got older and were banished. The kids who remained were either descended from the original group of children or were kids whom they’d encountered on supply runs.

  Deciding to stay the night at the younger kids’ insistence, Joey and Alys made a little bed each for themselves in a single unit that had once been used to isolate chest infection patients. As Joey lay on the camp bed and Alys sat up reading by candle light in the rusted hospital bed, squeaking the rubber under-sheet every time she moved. Joey giggled, assuming that she’d farted. Alys hid her tears for The Sick Kids behind the book she read.

  When she’d composed herself and was certain her voice would be steady, she spoke.

  “What do you make of all this – these kids and how they live?”

  Turning to his side to face her, Joey propped himself up on one arm, exposing his archer’s chest a little. Alys’ eyes were instantly rigid on one word on page eighty-seven of her book.

  Joey thought nothing of being shirtless in front of anyone. Back in The Gardens, he’d habitually peeled off his upper clothes whilst training with her mother. Alys didn’t think that she’d ever get used to seeing boys’ bodies.

  “I reckon that they’re coping pretty well. If you think about it, it’s a pretty logical assumption that they’ve made: that all the adults are monsters,” Joey whispered.

  “Oh I know, it’s just that they seem to be in denial about it. They can look out their windows anytime and see children… Zoms who were children, right outside their windows. But they still ask their oldest to leave.”

  “I’m not sure we have the right to interfere, Alys. People don’t like having their beliefs challenged,” Joey said, sitting up.

  Alys fixed her eyes even more rigidly on the page in front of her as Joey’s sheet slipped to his waist. She forced boredom into her reddening expression.

  “I think I need to do something, Joey. They’re doing well, but they need older people.”

  “Why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. “They’ve managed fine for decades with just a group of kids.”

  Alys did look up now, fixing his eyes with hers.

  “What about those kids they turn out? They are still kids at eighteen here, Joseph; they’re so naïve and they’re being sacrificed out of fear and misunderstanding.”

  Tears had begun to burn behind her eyes. She willed them not to flow.

  Joey nodded. “We can’t just tell them that everything they’ve based their community on is wrong. Even if they accept it, the guilt will destroy them.”

  Alys rose from her bed. Sitting on the edge of Joey’s camp bed she avoided looking at his torso or into his eyes and picked a spot on the floor. She reached out for his hand.

  “Joseph. I really need you to help me with this. I need to find a way to make a small but significant change for these kids. Can you do that for me?”

  Joey looked away. He was angry but hiding it from her. He was too alert not to notice that she’d called him Joseph twice now and too smart to misinterpret the use of the name as innocent. He knew that she was trying to manipulate him and he knew that she’d done it with the full knowledge that he’d recognise the attempt.

  The gamble was that calling him Joseph would touch him somewhere inside, remind him of the man who was a father to him. The only person who’d ever called him Joseph, not Brother Joseph, but just Joseph.

  Alys was gambling that the shift in his emotions would remind him what being a trapped kid was like. She’d been trapped by fences and her mother’s insistence that she be ready to venture out. He’d been trapped by religious beliefs and loyalty to those who’d raised him. She wanted to remind him who he’d been to her and to Jock, but most of all to himself.

  “Okay,” he said, voice tinged with regret and a trace of anger. “Let’s talk it through, but Alys,” Joey clenched his jaw and gave her a hard look, “don’t pull this crap with me again. Friends don’t do that.”

  “I’m sorry, Joey.” They both relaxed a little as the name left her lips. “I promise, I won’t.”

  Chapter 15

  Joey

  The hospital camp bed had proved surprisingly comfortable. Certainly Joey had spent the night sleeping on worse. He and Alys had managed a full four hours sleep after spending the early hours discussing how best they could help The Sick Kids. Still unconvinced that they had any right to burst the children’s little bubble and open their eyes to a larger world, Joey trusted that Alys was seeing something that he wasn’t in the situation. Despite being good with people, especially kids, he hadn’t exactly spent much time around children and she seemed so certain of the need to change their viewpoint. Joey was having a hard time understanding how the real world that they were about to open these kids’ eyes to was, in any way, an improvement over the one that they existed in right now. Affecting enthusiasm for her plan he ploughed on, de
spite the inner voice telling him to leave them to their fantasy.

  Pulling on his black long-sleeved T as Alys read her book, Joey asked, “Ready?”

  Alys snapped her book closed and stuffed it into her rucksack. Standing, she made for the door in reply. As she approached the exit, she turned towards him, a softness in her eyes he’d never seen there before.

  “This is the right thing, Joey. I promise.”

  He gave her a sharp nod and followed her out and along the corridor to the former PJs’ loft, a parent’s room in the hospital where exhausted parents unwilling to leave their sick child could grab a few hours restless sleep. That was before they began eating their kids, of course.

  The Sick Kids were spread around on the floor, resting on cushions and stuffing their faces with meat. Joey had no idea what animal it had come from and didn’t ask, choosing instead to throw his rucksack into the corner and sit beside some of the younger kids and stuff his own mouth, signalling to Alys that she’d be doing the talking this morning.

  Alys scowled at him, dumped her own rucksack at her feet and took a deep breath, composing herself. Her voice filled the room.

  “Kids,” she said, softly but firmly. It was a tone of voice Joey hadn’t thought her capable of. She was always so… hard. It reminded him of the shock he’d felt when Alys had been so kind to Natalie the previous day. He thought that he’d hidden his surprise but Alys had clearly been hurt at it.

  “Kids. We have to move on today but we wanted to tell you how impressed we’ve been with the way that you’ve organised yourselves here. You’re strong people, with a good strategy for surviving this city. Better than most, as you’ve learned from Joey’s stories.”

  A few of them giggled as Joey made a silly face.

  Alys was clearly giving him a cue to say something. He smiled behind a chunk of meat and shoved it in his mouth, giving Alys the thumbs-up to continue. She drilled him with a look that would scare a Zom before turning back, smiling, to her audience.

  “We’re both really grateful to you for sharing your home with us.” She glanced at Joey again; another thumbs-up. He tried really hard not to smile.

  “Before we carry on with our trip, we wanted to tell you some more about the world out there.” Alys pointed out the window. “Not all adults are Zombies. It’s a fact. It obviously seemed that way because of the circumstances your predecessors founded your community in. But it’s simply not true, I’m sorry.”

  Irene stood, dropping her meal at her feet. She had a sympathetic look on her face, like she was talking to a complete moron. Joey watched Alys’ anger flash for a moment in response, but she buried it quickly before any of the kids noticed.

  “Our founders knew what they were doing, Alys. Look out the window.” It was she who pointed this time. “They’re all adults out there; we’re all kids in here. It’s pretty obvious.” She threw Alys another look of sympathy. “I know that it must be difficult to accept, but in a few months, maybe weeks, you’ll be one of them.”

  Alys massaged her temple before speaking.

  “Irene, I know adults who are still human. I’ve lived with them my whole life. I come from a community filled with them. My own mother’s one of them. So did Joey. He told you about Jock, weren’t you listening?”

  Irene looked down at the kids gathered around the room. All were looking up at her for answers. She smiled kindly down at them, shaking her head slightly, communicating to them silently that Alys was clearly a nutcase.

  “Joey told us about Jock, yes, but maybe he was an exception. Maybe he hadn’t been exposed, or maybe…” She turned a malicious look towards Alys, eyes steely. “Maybe, he’s a liar and you are too. Maybe you feel the turn coming on you and want to make sure that you’ve plenty of food around for you.”

  Irene made a gesture with her hands, a spreading motion like she was sowing seeds that took in every child in the hall. In a way, she was sowing seeds and ones that would grow quickly and wildly in her young charges’ minds.

  Alys backed up a few steps and crouched down to come to eye level with the kids on the floor, addressing them instead of Irene.

  “Nobody is going to change. Nobody is going to hurt you, least of all me or Joey. We’d rather die first than hurt one of you.”

  Her voice conveyed passion, determination and complete conviction to everyone’s ears. Everyone’s except Irene’s. She tutted loudly.

  Joey did speak now.

  “Alys is right,” he boomed with a depth in his voice he’d never summoned before. A couple of the younger kids jumped in response. “We would never do anything to hurt you.”

  He stood, offered his hand to Alys who accepted and allowed him to help her to her feet. Standing together, facing the assembled kids, Joey continued.

  “That includes staying in a place where children are afraid of us.” Joey was suddenly as certain as Alys was that The Sick Kids needed a wake-up call. Bringing his mouth close to Alys’ ear, he whispered, “Tell them everything, Alys.”

  She squeezed his hand firmly in response. A thank you for accepting her judgement?

  Her eyes, filled with certainty and compassion, fixed on Irene’s for a second before scanning each of The Sick Kids’ faces in turn.

  “The only thing that makes people turn into biters is being bitten by one. That’s it. Not dying: if you die, you don’t come back. Nothing else but being bitten will infect you. Not being spat at or breathing air around a biter or reaching eighteen years old.”

  Joey gave her hand a squeeze to reassure her to go on. They’d discussed this as a last ditch effort if The Kids wouldn’t listen. Joey hadn’t been convinced last night but Irene’s single-mindedness and her influence over the smaller children reminded him of his life with The Brotherhood and he was damn well convinced of the only right course of action now.

  “The people you’ve sent out there,” Alys continued, allowing her anger and frustration to show, “these children you’ve sent out there in fear and ignorance and guilt have most likely turned by now, but only because you sent them out there to get bitten. You sent them out there needlessly, to die.”

  There it was: the truth of it. Alys moved her eyes over every face gathered, looking for a response.

  Irene wasn’t the least bit affected by their words. Gathering the kids together, she spoke sweetly to them like some bastard version of Mary Poppins, reassuring them, herding them.

  “Come along kids, say goodbye to Alys and Joey. They’re leaving now. That’s it, come along.”

  Joey and Alys watched the children file out of the loft. All were smiling happily, some skipped as they went. The awful truth was that, for them, whatever Irene said was true; just simply true. No question.

  As Irene passed them, indifferent to their presence, Alys’ hand lashed out and caught her wrist in her iron grip.

  “You’re deluded.” She spat the words at Irene.

  Irene just shrugged, looked at her wrist until Alys sighed and released her. Then she floated off down the hallway singing to the children.

  Alys glared at Joey.

  “Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t say a word.”

  Joey had no intention of saying the words but he was thinking them.

  Not “I told you so,” which is what she’d expected, but rather, “You were right to try.”

  She didn’t want to hear either remark so he swallowed the words and followed her out onto Sciennes Road to continue their journey south.

  As they made their way back onto the main thoroughfare of Dalkeith Road, Alys, who’d been silent since leaving The Sick Kids, turned to Joey.

  “You think that they’ll make it.”

  “They have so far, Alys.” Maybe not the way that they could have but at least they’re surviving.”

  Alys started along Dalkeith Road. “But at what cost? Are they monsters, Joey?”

  “No,” he replied instantly. “They’re not. Maybe the younger kids listened. Maybe your words will sink in as time passes and t
hey see evidence of it as they age. Maybe not.”

  Alys sighed heavily. It sounded like she was releasing something that had shaken loose inside her.

  “Let’s push on, all the way to the hospital today, Joey. Even if we need to travel all night.”

  Joey merely nodded in response. A sharp nod that told her he understood the urge. He’d felt the disillusionment that she’d been hammered by this morning during his travels with Jock. The realisation that some people couldn’t, wouldn’t be helped. It was a hard lesson and a difficult fact to accept. It was the driving force behind Jock’s mantra of No heroics. She was handling it much better than he had.

  They set off, south along Dalkeith Road, along roofs and trunks and bonnets. Car to car they flowed, much more quickly than they had the previous day, much more silently.

  Chapter 16

  Alys

  They reached Craigmillar Castle road by midnight and silently set up camp on an overgrown cycle path set slightly off the main road. The sprawling trees and shrubs left just enough moss-covered path to erect their tents, but provided enough in the way of obstacles to snag any wandering Ringed. Between the foliage and Joey’s early-warning devices they could rest easy. At least Joey could; Alys’ brain was on fire. She was furious and devastated at the day’s events. Joey fell asleep the instant his head rested, leaving Alys in awe at his skill in emptying his mind. She ignored the urge to throw an arm over the boy who lay peacefully dreaming beside her, rolled over and spent most of the night grinding her molars.

  Chapter 17

  Alys

  Morning broke and brought the smells of cooking meat drifting through the open doorway of the small tent. Reaching out with her right hand, Alys verified that Joey was up and about and no longer in the tent. She sat up in her sleeping bag and stretched the kinks from her neck.