Sadie placed her finger on the trigger.
He looked up the barrel at her face and thought about the night before and the sounds she’d made as they fucked. He spat and waited for the bullet.
He hoped to be dead before he fell into their snatching hands.
The clearing was silent. He ground his teeth and tensed his wasted muscles.
Sadie breathed out, her face slick with rain and exultation.
The Plague Gods wailed directly overhead; Sadie glanced up for half a second and Morse took his chance and stumbled into her with his head bowed and rammed her in the chest. The rifle fired near to his head, and he cried out as he spun around blindly. A moment of panic until he righted himself. The report of the rifle left an echoing thunderclap inside his head. His ears rang with the aftermath of exploding air.
Sadie had fallen, and before she could rise Morse kicked her in the face, and she dropped the rifle and rolled away close to the edge of the pit.
Morse breathed hard, gulping for air. He faced her as she climbed to her feet and pulled the knife from her belt. Her face contorted with anger and madness, the skin over her cheekbones florid and taut. She turned the knife in her hand then took two quick steps and lunged, swinging the blade towards him; he was too slow and her attack left a shallow cut on his left arm. He grimaced at the pain.
They faced off across a distance of a few yards. Sadie feinted with the knife and smiled. She was muttering mad things under her breath, the recital of a prayer only she was privy to; the insanity of a wretched mind hollowed out by isolation and loneliness.
She lunged again, the blade held out straight, and Morse side-stepped her and hooked his arms over her knife-arm, squeezing her wrist tight against his ribs. He cried out in pain as her arm caught the wound in his side, but he held her tight, even when her free hand curled into a claw and swiped at his face. He dodged her sharp nails and head-butted her when her face came close to his own, and she stumbled away clutching her nose, whining through her hands. She dropped the knife.
Morse crouched to retrieve it from the long grass then rose into a standing position with the blade held between his bound hands.
Sadie was on her knees, scrambling for the rifle.
He staggered forward with the knife held out just as she lifted the rifle from the ground and turned towards him, and he met her just as she raised the rifle, plunging the knife into her stomach.
She let out a small gasp, and when her eyes fell upon him in that small moment he felt sorry for her. An expression of sorrow on her face. Her mouth moved silently to let out a low breath.
“I’m sorry,” Morse told her. “I’m sorry.”
Sadie stumbled backwards with the rifle clasped in her hand and the knife stuck in her belly. She tottered on the edge of the pit, and Morse almost reached out for her, but then she overbalanced and tilted back and fell away from him.
Her screams were all he could hear as he fled from the clearing and back into the woods.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The thunder in the sky. The falling rain and bitter drabness of the land in the terrible winter.
Morse cut the washing line around his wrists by scraping it over a piece of torn metal hanging from the frame of a wrecked car. He returned to the supermarket and scavenged what he could from what remained of Sadie’s supplies. A few tins of vegetables and two of ravioli. Two half-litre bottles of spring water. A quarter-full jar of instant coffee granules. The Coleman lantern, two candles and a lighter. A blanket. He put on his tactical vest and the heavy coat over it then grabbed two sharp knives from Sadie’s collection, tucking one into his belt and the other up his sleeve.
He put the supplies in a holdall and strapped it over his shoulders then left the supermarket in the slowly-dimming light of the late afternoon. The wound in his side felt like it had been stretched and opened. He checked the bandage, fearing the worst, but there was no blood, so he left it alone and hoped it would heal, given time.
Crows circled above the woodland he’d recently fled. He hoped Sadie had died quickly and without too much pain in her pit of monsters.
*
Exhausted, sore and downcast, Morse found his way back to the house of Florence’s abduction. The last of the light was leaving the sky and the cries of infected swept across nearby fields in the growing murk.
The bodies of the infected he’d killed were sprawled upon the ground outside the house. Gunshot wounds and obliterated skulls, twisted limbs and torn flesh. Animals had been at the remains and scattered bones. He stepped over stinking entrails strewn along the grass. Bullet casings glinted like old pennies.
He found his rifle lying in a patch of weeds, broken beyond repair. His pistol was nearby, covered in dirt and ash. The firing mechanism was ruined and the top of the barrel was split open. Not that it mattered, because he had run out of rounds for both guns during his fight with the infected. His rucksack had been torn open and soaked in diseased blood. Everything inside was broken, slick with stinking fluids.
He threw the pistol into the undergrowth. His machete was probably lost beneath the infected bodies. The thought of searching for it among the cadavers filled him with lethargy and despair.
Morse walked to the front doorway. Bullet holes in the walls. The jamb shredded into splinters. When he passed over the threshold and into the small hallway, the smell of rotting meat and mildew was all about him. He picked his way through the shadows, his heartbeat juddering between his ears.
The two dead men remained where he’d left them on the floor. He searched their pockets and found a map of Great Britain and some sticks of chewing gum. He wrenched the snub-nosed revolver from the fingers of the man who’d shot him. Four rounds left in the cylinder.
Better than nothing.
*
Close to dusk. He would have to stay in the house for the night. No other option, unless he wanted to walk in the darkness without a torch or rifle.
He pulled the bodies outside and dumped them among the remains of the infected out the front. Scavengers would visit during the night.
*
In the gentle glow of the lantern in the living room where Florence had been taken, he sat on the floor, looking over the map he’d placed before him. He sipped water between mouthfuls of ravioli, aching and drowsy, and several times he almost fell asleep with the tin of food in his hand. The skin around his eyes and on the bridge of his nose was darkened, and whenever he touched it he winced and wished he had some alcohol or a decent cigarette to soften the pain with chemical distractions. His jaw clicked when he moved it to a certain angle. His nose didn’t feel right. Bruises and lumps throbbed on his scalp.
The name of a village on the map was circled in red pen. Just over five miles away. He wondered what the circle meant as he ran his finger over it then thought about all the dead villages, towns and cities that now belonged to the infected. He thought about it for a long while, scratching at the skin under his greying beard.
No idea of the time, not that it mattered. How quickly you could adapt to existence without the aid of timepieces and ticking clocks. He finished eating and climbed onto the sofa and stared at the opposite wall. The rest of the night was spent shivering under the blanket, listening to the scavengers outside, before he finally fell asleep and dreamed of terrible things that he’d soon forget once he woke in the morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
He left the house at first light, the revolver in his cold hand, and as he walked the day took form around him. The paling sky, washed out and wide open.
He stopped to stare up at a row of giant wind turbines. They had ceased working a long time ago, immense memorials to human ingenuity left to fall into eventual disrepair. How long would they stand? Hundreds of years? Thousands? No one would ever know, because people would be gone by the time the turbines collapsed to the earth. No one would be left to witness their fall.
He saluted them before he moved on; it felt like the right thing to do.
*
Morse occasionally stopped to rest. His aching body gave him no respite, but he walked on, watching the fields, the roads, the ditches and the trees. Birds took flight before his treading feet. The rustling of animals in thickets and stretches of undergrowth. The cold air on his skin.
He hid from flocks of infected that stalked the fields; cowering in ditches with the revolver close to his chest, ready to use it on himself if they discovered him. He would not be able to outrun them.
It rained and then it stopped, and then it rained again even harder than before. He sheltered in abandoned cars, slumped next to leathery corpses with rictus smirks on their eyeless faces. He found a naked man hanging from his neck on a high tree branch, his tongue lolling from his mouth and his eyes bulging. The flesh was slowly peeling from his bones. Must have been dead for a few weeks. Morse could smell him from down on the ground.
*
Later on, after walking for the entire morning and some of the afternoon, he arrived near the village. He stopped in the road and looked at a road sign, grimacing at the pins and needles in the backs of his legs.
SHOTBOLT – 1 mile
Morse climbed the shallow rise of the land and at the top he looked down at where the valley fell away from him. He took the binoculars and glassed the dark shroud of the village, lingering on the shape of the church tower, where a St George’s flag bustled on a white pole. Stretches of road visible through the bare trees. And in the silence, the sudden sound of an engine down there. Something running on diesel. The whine of a faltering accelerator along one of the roads, echoing around the buildings and the trees.
Then he glimpsed the black van on the main road leaving Shotbolt. It slowed as it neared the fenced-in property of a large white house just outside the village. The van idled at the tall metal gates until a man in a cloth mask appeared from behind a wooden outhouse. He carried a crossbow and raised his hand to the driver of the van then opened the gate and stood back to let the vehicle through. Once the van was inside, he shut the gate and looked out between the railings at the road before turning away and following the van up the tarmac driveway to the front of the house.
Morse’s heart quickened.
He kept the binoculars trained on the van as two men climbed down from the cab. The driver tucked a pistol into the waistband of his trousers, went to the back of the van and opened the doors. He said something then gestured for whoever was inside to come out. There was nothing friendly about him.
Morse watched. “Come on, Florence. Come on.”
A thin, pale man in a crumpled jacket emerged from the back of the van and stumbled onto the tarmac with a clear plastic carrier bag in each hand. The bags were full of tinned food. Morse’s stomach groaned.
The driver stepped closer and looked like he was about to do something to him. The plastic bag man looked at the ground, head bowed, subservient. Then the driver pushed him towards the front door and they went inside the house.
Morse watched the windows, but there was nothing to be seen. Not even a glimpse of movement. Was Florence in the house? And if she was, what were they doing to her?
He shook his head to push away the insidious thoughts. Closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. The coldness inside his chest was paralysing until the feeling passed and he spat by his feet to clear a metallic taste from his mouth.
He looked at the sky and thought that darkness would soon fall, and it would hide him in the approaching night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Glimpse of the moon past roaming clouds, casting shadows from tall trees. The endless sky of stars. The cold crept into his bones as he crossed the road, glancing about him, the pistol clenched in his hand. He’d ventured through the village, where the houses were dark and deserted, and the gardens were overgrown and surrounded by collapsing wooden fences.
Just another dead village in England.
He’d seen no infected. Maybe the men had cleared the village. That would make sense.
Nevertheless Morse still moved carefully and quietly. A cold sweat dampened the insides of his clothes as he stepped past an abandoned car shunted to the side of the road.
The night was silent all around him.
*
Morse crouched at the tall chain-link fence surrounding the grounds. The fence was topped with barbed wire. He wondered if the fence and the barbed wire had been there before the outbreak, and if whoever had lived in the house had been concerned with security.
Lantern light in some of the ground-floor windows. Morse wondered how many people were in the house.
On the far side of the property, torchlight swept the ground. Vague outline of a man: a guard on patrol. Morse would have to move before the guard walked around.
He pulled the blanket from his holdall and stood on his toes and laid the blanket over the barbed wire. Then, gripping the metal links, he hoisted himself up the fence and onto the blanket and stifled a cry when one of the steel barbs protruded through the blanket and into his skin. He gritted his teeth and clambered over the fence, cringing at the creak of metal underneath him. He dropped to the ground, but he landed badly on his feet, lost his balance when he tried to crouch, and fell clumsily onto one side.
“Like a fucking amateur,” he muttered, wincing.
He rose into a squatting position tight to the fence. Looked around, swallowing down his dry throat. His heart flinched at the silence. He took out the knife. Staying close to the fence he moved down towards the front of the property, where the guard was at the gates, pointing the torch out onto the road and the field beyond.
When he reached the outhouse he stood flat against the wall and peered around the corner at the guard, then drew his head back quickly as the torchlight swept his way. His breath caught in his throat. The light grew larger and brighter until he could hear the guard’s footfalls. Morse froze as the guard appeared no more than three yards away at the fence, facing the same way as him. The guard was hooded, with a cloth mask covering his face. He stopped to check the chain links, turning his back to Morse and rattling the fence with his hand to test its strength.
The guard turned back to his patrol route just as Morse stepped towards him.
Morse halted, caught in the weak edges of the torchlight, heart leaping under his ribs.
The guard swivelled his head and the eyes within the holes of the mask widened.
Morse rushed towards him. The guard raised the crossbow from his side and Morse felt the thup of the bolt as it flew past his head. He raised the knife. The guard didn’t get the chance to reload. Morse pushed him against the fence and thrusted the knife into his stomach, covering his mouth with one hand. The man bucked against him and Morse stabbed him again and again, feeling the cut of the blade through soft tissue and vital organs, until he slumped upon Morse’s chest and his muffled, frightened cries faded into silence. His tearful eyes remained fixed upon Morse’s face as he laid him down by the fence. Catching his breath, Morse crouched and pulled the mask from the guard’s face.
Thinning grey hair. A creased, weathered face. He had killed an old man. He searched his pockets. A photo of twin baby girls sat in front of a photographer’s backdrop, laughing towards the camera. The date in the corner of the photo was from over three years ago.
Morse put the photo back in the pocket before he could think too much about it.
He reloaded the crossbow and slung it over his shoulder, turned the torch off and put it in his coat pocket. After he wiped the blade of the knife on the grass he stood and turned towards the house.
*
Morse moved down the side wall, his boots making no sound upon the soft ground. He stopped at the corner when the back door opened and threw a rectangle of yellow light onto the grass behind the house.
A man stepped outside, carrying a plastic bucket; he walked ten yards out into the overgrown back lawn and stopped at what seemed to be a pit dug into the ground. A wet splattering followed the tipping of the bucket into the pit. The man spat and w
iped his mouth with his sleeve, then placed the bucket by his feet and began undoing his trousers. As he pissed he whistled a slow tune.
Morse checked no one was following the man out of the doorway and moved from the wall, stepping through the grass, breathing lowly. The stink of putrid shit and urine came to him on the breeze.
He waited until the man finished pissing before he grabbed him from behind, wrapped one arm around his neck to tilt his chin and with the other hand dragged the knife across his throat, cutting deep through the muscle and severing the windpipe. When the knife came free there was only the man’s gurgling and the desperate scrabbling of his hands. Morse held the man tight until he stopped struggling, then pushed him into the pit and sent the bucket in afterwards.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Morse stepped through the back doorway into a laundry room. An LED lantern glowed on the top of a rusting tumble dryer whose insides were stuffed with old rags. The boiled bones of a small animal piled upon a plate on a low shelf. He held the crossbow to his shoulder and moved into a corridor, stepping slowly and lightly, his heart pounding. He stopped and listened, and the house was silent as if there were only empty rooms waiting for him.
Down the corridor there were two doors set in the wall on his right side. At the end of the corridor was another door. He crept along the wooden floor and put his ear to the first door and listened. Nothing. The handle gave with one twist of his hand and he opened the door and aimed the crossbow into the room. He shrank away from a fetid smell that was like fruiting bodies of mould. A window looked out at the back garden and let the moonlight inside, and it revealed an old mattress on the metal frame of a bed in the corner. A tussle of stained blankets at the foot of the bed. Black stains where the wallpaper had peeled away. Dirty clothes piled next to the skirting board.
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