The Last Soldier

by Hawkins, Rich

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “Because he wanted to do things to me. He touched me and tried to kiss me, so I killed him with a knife.”

  “I’m sorry you had to do that,” Morse said.

  “It used to make me feel bad, but now I’m glad I killed him. Does that make me a bad person, Morse?”

  “No,” he answered. “Not at all. You did the right thing. He would have killed you otherwise. But he would have done worse things to you first.”

  “Yes, he would have.”

  “Exactly.” Morse lowered his head and let his heavy eyelids fall. “Kill or die.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Morse woke with a small cry and pawed for his rifle in the dark. He held it close to his body and waited for his breathing to slow. Closed his eyes and tried not to think of corpulent faces and rancid mouths. A memory of jaws biting near his throat and the bestial stink of the infected.

  Florence’s voice in the darkness: “Are you okay, Morse?”

  He tried to speak, but he had no spit. He made a low noise, like the small whimper of a child, and then remained silent. Florence didn’t reply. After a little while he heard her breathing regulate as she went back to sleep.

  Morse looked into the dark for a long time and in his mind recited the names of dead soldiers he’d known in long ago years.

  *

  They left the airfield behind and walked back up the dirt track and onto the road. The horizon was a thin red line slowly spreading into the sky.

  “I think it’ll be a nice day,” she said.

  “It’ll be cold,” said Morse. He watched the roadsides and the shadows under the trees. “You warm enough?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “How far from the border?”

  “Not far.”

  Soon the sun was above the horizon. A thin glaze of cirrus clouds across the sky, blown by westerly winds. Morse would have called it pleasant in other circumstances.

  Further on they found human remains. A spinal column, pelvic girdle, splintered leg bones. Morse located what was left of the skull scattered a few yards away in the dirt. Tufts of pale blonde hair. Scraps of skin and flesh remained. The brain, eyes and genitals had been consumed. The internal organs devoured too. An efficient eater had done this.

  Florence stood staring at the remnants of some unfortunate soul. Morse looked to the ground around the chewed bones and placed his hand next to one of the large paw prints in the damp earth. The heel pad. Claw marks. Fresh kill and fresh tracks.

  “What is it?” asked Florence.

  Morse was thinking about the zoo advert they’d passed a while back. He hefted the rifle and stood, glancing around, watching the treeline.

  “Morse?”

  He looked at her. “The infected didn’t do this.”

  *

  They walked the road, moving at pace.

  “Maybe it was a dog,” Florence said.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Morse. “But the paw prints were too big. It was something large. A tiger or a lion. Or a panther or a leopard, maybe.”

  “A puma?”

  “Could be. It was bound to happen when the outbreak hit. Some animals escaped from captivity.”

  “Do you think it’s hunting us?”

  “I don’t know. But we’re in its territory, its hunting ground, so we should get away from here.”

  Florence said nothing and moved closer to him.

  *

  Two miles on, the road was flooded and there was no way through. Morse stood at the edge of the black water and tried to gauge how deep it was, but it was impossible to tell without going in there. And he didn’t like the look of the water and what might be in it.

  They would have to go around by entering the thick woodland either side of the road. Morse led Florence into the thin shadows away from the reach of the pale daylight. Under the canopy of wiry branches and dripping boughs they walked, stepping softly on the ground.

  “Strange,” Florence said, her feet crunching on leaves.

  “What is?” Morse said.

  “How peaceful it is. It’s like the plague and all the death never happened. We could stand here and pretend none of it happened. And beyond these woods the world’s still there, my parents are waiting for me to come home…and everything’s fine. We could just go home.”

  Morse stopped. Looked at her, his charge. The frail little girl, her pale face framed by a plastic hood.

  “That sounds nice,” he said.

  She nodded. “Yeah. But it makes me sad.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  “Really?”

  “All the time.”

  *

  They walked. Morse scanned the surrounding trees. Silence except for the vague chatter of birds in the treetops.

  Florence pulled on his sleeve. Morse halted and looked to her. He raised his eyebrows.

  She whispered, “I think we’re being watched.”

  Morse kept his voice low. “Where?”

  “Behind us.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “A shadow.”

  “A shadow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Keep moving. Don’t look back.”

  They resumed walking. Morse listened for the rustle of leaves and snapping of twigs.

  “Is it the big cat?”

  “Just keep walking.”

  Something moved in Morse’s peripheral vision to his left, but when he glanced that way there was nothing there. The back of his neck tingled. His teeth began to itch. His fingers tapped on the rifle. Florence muttered something inaudible.

  Off to the left was the rustle of foliage. Morse ignored it and kept moving. He tried to estimate how far to the end of the woods, but the trees seemed to stretch on for miles and thicken all about him. His hearing picked up the low sounds of the woods, the insects and the small mammals. The distant cries of birds. Florence’s footfalls.

  Something on all fours ran through the trees up ahead, across his line of sight, and vanished into shadow.

  Morse stopped. Florence stood beside him.

  A burst of laughter seemed to echo all around them, fading then growing louder and then fading again. Morse scanned the surrounding trees when he thought he saw a flicker of movement. Then the laughter came again, drifting from the heart of the woods. It was humourless and dry; Morse imagined it spilling from a swollen, dusty mouth.

  Morse turned to his left when he heard the sound of snapping sticks and feet slapping on the ground.

  He realised his mistake too late, and as he turned, a dark shape wearing a crown of sticks leapt from the trees to the right and fell upon him. They hit the ground together and the air was knocked from his lungs. The rifle fell from his hands and hung loose from his shoulders as the strap dug into the side of his neck.

  The smell of old shit, sweat and piss assailed Morse as the figure grabbed for his throat with one hand while raising a knife with the other. Fetid, sulphurous breath blasted his face.

  A bone-thin man in rags, face streaked with grime, his beard wild and knotted with filth. He was slippery and manic, scratching at Morse’s skin like an animal in heat. Long fingernails raked down one side of Morse’s face. He gritted his teeth against the pain.

  The blade swept towards his throat and he barely managed to block the man’s arm with his own. He grabbed his attacker’s wrist and twisted, and the man shrieked but the knife stayed in his hand.

  Morse twisted again, but the man craned his neck back and head-butted him in the face. He felt his nose bend, and tasted blood on his teeth. He slumped, disorientated, his vision blurry.

  The man pinned Morse to the ground and raised the knife again; the glint of the blade next to his mad, filthy face. The hole of his mouth and the brown teeth past his scabbed lips. Mad sounds. The rattle of breath in his chest.

  Then Florence appeared behind him and plunged a knife into his neck; and he froze as his eyes bulged and his face w
as all surprise and shock.

  She let go of the knife and backed away.

  The man’s grip on Morse’s arms loosened, he gurgled something like a question, and his mouth slackened so that it hung open and let out a small gasp. Morse heaved him away and stood, grabbed the rifle and stepped back.

  He was lying on his back with his face towards the canopy above, the small slivers of grey daylight dappling his face. He shivered as blood poured from where the knife was embedded in his neck. He blinked, moved his mouth, but there was no sound. Then he reached for the knife and pulled it out and it fell from his hand. A kitchen knife with a serrated blade. Morse looked at Florence, but she only stared at the man, watching his life ebb away.

  “He’s not infected,” she said. “They don’t use weapons or wear crowns of sticks.”

  A trickle of blood ran from the corner of the man’s mouth. His hands pawed weakly at his chest.

  “Let’s go,” said Morse.

  “Wait,” Florence said. She looked past him, into the trees.

  A woman stepped from the undergrowth, thin, animalistic and ragged. She stood over the dead man with her head bowed. She wore a composition of rags and animal pelts. Tattered trainers on her feet. Her hair reached down to her waist, knotted with bits of moss and leaves. She glanced at Morse and Florence then fell to her knees next to the man and enclosed his hand with hers. Finally she put to her face to his chest and began to cry.

  Morse pulled Florence with him and they carried on and left the woman to mourn.

  When they had walked ten yards through the trees Morse stopped. Florence went on a few steps before she realised he was no longer beside her. She looked back.

  Morse was staring at the ground.

  “She’ll follow us,” Morse said. “Come after us as revenge for the man’s death. She’ll try to kill us. I won’t let her hurt you, Florence.”

  He turned and walked back to the woman. She was still kneeling over the man’s corpse, crying and muttering. He hung the rifle over his shoulder then drew the pistol. Stood over the woman and the dead man. The woman glared up at him as he raised the pistol. His heart fluttered and he hesitated. The woman bared her teeth at him and spat. But when he noticed her other hand upon the swollen curve of her stomach, he lost the will to kill her and lowered the pistol.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. And then retreated and left her to mourn her dead mate. She watched him leave, her red-rimmed eyes watery and fierce. The last he saw of her was as she put her face to the dead man’s mouth and kissed him.

  Florence called to Morse from past the trees.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  They reached the edge of the woods and returned to the road. Just before dusk they found a bungalow set back from the road, down a gravel driveway overgrown at the sides with pale weeds that clung to their clothes as they passed. They stepped around the shapes of old bones. Florence looked back towards the road.

  When Morse opened the front door he had to step back from the thick rot-stink of corpses. He told Florence to wait outside. Fixed a cloth over his mouth and nose then entered the building. He went through the rooms; human remains scattered everywhere, long-dead and decayed. Walls and floors stained with old blood that was almost black. This had been the scene of a slaughter. He touched one of the walls and ran his finger down a long vertical fracture that was crumbling at the edges. Mounds of damp plaster fallen from the sagging ceiling. Peeling wallpaper. He raided the kitchen cupboards and found a bar of Fry’s Turkish Delight hidden behind a stack of greasy Tupperware pots and tubs. He hadn’t eaten any since he was a teenager, and the sudden thought made his eyes watery.

  Florence’s voice from the back doorway startled him. “If we can’t stay in here, I’ve found somewhere else we can spend the night.”

  He put the Turkish Delight in his pocket. “Where?”

  “Come and see.”

  *

  They stood in the back garden as the light faded below the faint glimmer of constellations. The curve of the moon. The air turning colder.

  Morse looked up at the treehouse nestled among the thick branches of a great oak, situated at least nine feet above the ground.

  “That?” he said.

  “Yeah. It looks like Bart Simpson’s treehouse.”

  “We’ll be cold.”

  “We have blankets.”

  “You sure about this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fair enough.”

  *

  After pulling the rope ladder up so that no one could follow them, they prepared to settle down for the night. There was a homemade sign daubed in felt tip. PETER’S DEN. There was a pile of superhero comics, and posters of Boba Fett, Darth Maul and Darth Vader loomed on the walls.

  A small wooden desk on one side of the floor, beneath the glassless window. A beanbag seat. A shelf lined with old Fighting Fantasy books; they must have been passed down by an older relative, or bought from a charity shop, because they were the same editions Morse remembered reading in the early Eighties. They were collector’s items with no one left to collect them.

  In the desk drawers he found a Panini football sticker album from just over two years ago. That was the last ever season of professional football, or any football. There were also some plastic toy dinosaurs, a pack of pencils, and some drawing pads filled with sketches of fantastic creatures and cartoon characters. Peter had been a talented artist. It all made Morse very despondent and melancholy. He wondered if the boy was amongst the decayed remains back in the house. Then he thought it didn’t matter because the boy was probably dead anyway, and that was that.

  *

  In the low light of the candle, they sat beside each other and huddled under their own blankets and some Morse had taken from the airing cupboard in the bungalow. The treehouse creaked in the night and the dark outside was absolute since the sky had clouded over. They had finished their dinner in minutes, ravenous as they had been. Florence’s stomach gurgled as it went about digesting her food. Morse’s legs and back were aching. They both stank. Morse had cleaned the scratches on his face with some TCP. He supposed he should be worried about catching an infection from the man’s filthy fingernails, but it was something he could push to the back of his mind for now. His nose wasn’t broken, thankfully.

  “Where did you get that knife, Florence?”

  “What?”

  “The knife you used back in the woods.”

  “I found it in a house.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Are you annoyed with me?”

  “No. I’m glad you did it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Thank you, Florence.”

  “For what?”

  “For using it.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “You did well.”

  “Do you think I could be a soldier?”

  He looked at her and smiled. “Maybe one day.”

  “I don’t think there’ll be anything left one day. Not of people, anyway.”

  “You could be right,” Morse said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In the morning they climbed down from the treehouse and started towards the border.

  They passed a stretch of grassland where there had once been a refugee encampment. Florence stopped to look, even when Morse urged her onwards, and in the end he had to go back for her. He stood beside the girl. She was biting one fingernail.

  “You okay?” said Morse.

  “Yeah.”

  “Best we don’t stop.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “The people who stayed here, trying to survive…they didn’t stand a chance, did they?”

  Morse looked out towards the ruins of shredded, tattered tents slowly being consumed by the overgrown grass. The site had already been picked through and looted, he reckoned. There would just be bones.

  “It wasn’t a good place to set up camp,” Morse said, speaking to himself more than Florence. “Stupid, really. Out in the open, exposed on all sides. I
ndefensible.”

  “They must have been desperate.”

  “Yeah. Everyone was back then.”

  Florence said, “It would have been a few days after the start of the outbreak. A few families, on the run, trying to hide. Low on food and supplies. Nowhere else to go.” She crouched and picked up a Lego brick from the grass by her feet. She stood and examined it in her hand. “The infected came from the west. A flock, most probably, full of the recently-turned. I think they came upon the camp at night while most of the people were asleep. They swarmed through the tents. People were killed in their sleeping bags. Children and babies crying. Screaming. A few of the men tried to fight with cricket bats and wooden clubs, but they were slaughtered and it was over in minutes. Some of the refugees were infected and absorbed into the flock; the rest of them were eaten. Mainly the children.”

  Morse watched her put the Lego brick in her coat pocket. “Let’s go.”

  “Okay.” She looked back one last time at the ruins of the campsite and said something, but Morse didn’t quite catch it and he carried on with her by his side.

  *

  They reached one of the last villages before the border and found it in ruins, save for a few cottages left emptied and looted, and most of those were burnt inside and hollowed out by fire. There was nothing to be found in this silent, desolate place. Crows perched on exposed beams beyond collapsed roofs. Woodpigeons in the charred trees. Graffiti had been scrawled on walls: KILL THE INFECTED!!!! ONCE BITTEN TWICE SHY THEN YOU DIE! GOD HAS BETRAYED US! And finally: THESE ARE THE DAYS OF THE LAST PLAGUE. The road they walked was topped with a thin layer of ash that shifted in the breeze. Morse pulled up his cloth mask and watched the ruins for movement.

  A large rat ran across the road and vanished beneath the remains of a car half-buried by fallen rubble.

  “It smells of shit around here,” Florence said, covering her nose with her hand.