by Stevens, GJ
His thin brow furrowed even further.
“Sources say the plague has infected hundreds of people, but our experience shows it could be in the thousands,” I said, the words slow as I chose. “Causing symptoms including reanimation from death.” I watched as his mouth dropped wide and he stood, scraping back his chair.
“Oh my god,” he said, pushing his hand to his mouth. I could see the colour draining from his face and I made a mental note to tone down the words. “Oh my god,” he repeated and peered closer. “Oh my god,” he said again, his eyes getting wider, not able to turn away from me.
I stood, scraping back the chair as he drew in close. My hand moved to my face, afraid I was changing, afraid hairs were sprouting out of my chin or my teeth were ripping through my lips.
My hand headed to the gun.
60
“You’re from the TV. You’re Jessica Carmichael,” he said, lifting the candle from the table and holding it towards my face. “Off the news, right?” he said with a new, high-pitched eagerness in his voice. His face contorted as he leant further and further over the table to get a better look.
Sinking back into the chair, I let my hands fall as the air sighed from my chest.
“Oh, my god. I’ve never met anyone famous before and you’re in my house.”
I shook my head.
“You are, you are. I watch the news every day. I see you around the world giving all those important people a hard time.”
Another sigh escaped.
“Yes, I’m Jess Carmichael,” I said, not hiding resignation from my voice as I shook my head.
Blind to my response, he rested the candle back on the table and pushed his hand out with a great smile on his right side as he waited. When it seemed he would stand there forever, I shook his hand with a weak grip.
“We’ve done this already. You’re Alex, I’m Jess.”
“Jessica Carmichael. Yes,” he said, gripping my hand with a great enthusiasm. “I can so see it now.”
He sat back in the seat, hovering on the edge and leaning forward as he swept his arm further across the table. “So all this,” he said, his eyebrows raising and lowering. “It’s a TV show, right?”
He looked around the room as if searching for hidden cameras or waiting for a TV crew to burst through the doorway.
“No wonder you look so glamorous for this time of night.”
I peered down to the dirt and the creases covering my jacket. I looked back up with a raised eyebrow. Maybe this guy wasn’t the full biscuit.
“Those things,” he continued. “I should have known. How did you do it?” he said, standing and not waiting for a reply. “Oh my goodness, you got me good.”
Walking past me, he reached up to a cupboard just at my back. “You like whiskey?” he said, but before I could say anything he spoke again. “Oh shit, can you drink on the job?” he said, his face widening as if I’d taken offence.
“I’m not on the job,” I replied, and must have seen the curl of my lip as he reached for another bottle.
“Of course you can, you’re not a copper. Vodka?” he nodded, his smile wide again as I replied with a reluctant nod.
“If only,” I said, but he ignored my words, pouring a slug of the clear spirit into my empty glass.
“I mean,” he said, before having to catch his breath while he poured a good few fingers into another glass grabbed from the drainer, “the make-up is amazing and the smell, oh my god, how did they get it so realistic? Made my stomach turn.”
“It’s real,” I said, letting the glass down, but he carried on talking like I hadn’t spoken.
“And you picked me,” he said. His smile beamed wider than ever.
I sighed again, turning down to the table as I shook my head.
“It’s real,” I said, letting the words build in volume. I looked up to see he’d stopped talking, his gaze on me as my head rose, but he burst into laughter as our eyes met.
“You’re good. You’re so good,” he said, taking another look around the room. “So when do they burst in to spring the surprise? Are there cameras hidden all around my house? I hope I haven’t ruined this for anyone?”
“Listen,” I said, and he was about to speak again, but I stood up from my seat and slapped my hand down on the table, sending the glasses jumping into the air. As the glasses landed without spilling, he paused, the colour draining from his face as the candles flickered.
“It’s real. It’s fucking real,” I shouted, watching his smile fall.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His smile crept back, but not building to its full strength.
Anger boiled in my chest. I grabbed the glass and downed the liquid, revelling in the sting as I wiped the back of my hand before letting out a great relief of air.
He looked on, his uncertainty growing as the smile sank. He looked around the room, searching again. I’d had all I could take and hit the table, sending both glasses toppling as they landed.
“On Christmas Day I had a call,” I said, my voice quiet, but forceful. “My ex called me. She was in trouble.” I did my best to ignore the twitch of his eyebrows. “I raced here to find they had imprisoned her in the middle of a quarantine zone. They held me, too, the government. They conducted tests on me and on my camera team who are both now dead. I barely survived to escape with Toni. There were so many people infected, dying and coming back to life. They attacked us from all sides. We nearly died so many times. This thing is real and if you still don’t get it, step outside and it won’t be long before you’re surrounded. Let one, let all of them bite into your flesh, then you’ll know how fucking real this is.”
I drew a deep breath and held my lungs full, congratulating myself for holding it together.
He didn’t speak, just stared on and I let him. I gave his mind time to get to grips with what I’d just said. It was the first time I’d told anyone. The first time I’d opened up. The first time I’d told anyone so much about me.
I watched the excitement slowly grow on his lips. My chest rising into my mouth, breath constricting with each moment.
“You deserve a fucking Oscar. Where’s Toni now?” he said.
I hated the way he exaggerated her name like she wasn’t real, like she was part of a lie. I moved around the table, careful to place my feet where I could see. I leant toward him.
“I shot her,” I said, letting the alcohol breath pour out before I stepped back.
His smile fell, but not completely as his eyebrows twitched.
“We had to run. We had to run for our lives, but still those things found us. They’re everywhere. We got split up and some fat fuck tied me to a bed in a screwed-up attempt to keep me safe…” I stopped as the words caught in my throat. I could no longer see the detail in Alex’s face, the rage pumping blood so fast in my head.
I took another step back. “Toni rescued me, but then turned me over to that bitch. I killed her trying to escape. It was an accident, but it was my finger pulling the trigger,” I said, raising my palms out towards him. “Does that deserve a fucking Oscar?”
Part of me wanted him to smile. Part of me wanted him to give me a way out, to give a release to my rage.
His smile came and he shook his head as he saw the gun in my hand as it raised. He saw it the same time I did. He saw it as I realised I’d picked its weight from the table when I’d passed to step forward. The smile fell with each angle of the gun rising in his direction.
“If this is a performance, if this is a show, if this is entertainment, this bullet won't kill you.”
I raised my eyebrows, his smile no longer there, but still he couldn’t help flinching a look around the room as with disbelief I pulled the trigger.
61
The candles stopped flickering. The room fell silent. Dust and smoke rained between us.
Past the barrel I watched Alex standing straight like a statue. His face fixed. Eyes staring. Open-mouthed.
Shaking, I let the gun drop and he bent his neck toward
s his chest. Trying to someway rationalise what I’d just done, I watched candlelight dance across his shirt, his hand shadowing the light as he scoured for a break in the cloth.
Pulling his shirt high, I saw the pale of his flat and well-defined stomach and flash of a black bra as he swept his hands across his chest, looking for holes that weren’t there.
Alex was a woman. How could I have been so blind?
She looked up and my brain caught up from the distraction. Alex watched as I flicked my eyes over her shoulder, trying to regain the anger that had caused me to take the shot.
She twisted as her shirt dropped back down, following my gaze to the wall behind.
Before I could finish questioning how I could have been so blind, how I could have missed the pitch of her voice, or the lack of an Adam’s apple, air pulled deep in a gasp and she stared into the cracked plaster as high as her head, her view fixing down the round hole in the centre.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d have fallen to her knees. I was ready to catch her head as she turned, but instead she twisted, standing like a statue with her mouth held wide.
“Still think it’s a fucking joke?” I said, my eyebrows raised as I fidgeted the gun in my grip. The words had less behind them than I’d expected.
Alex shook her head, eyes flicking to my hand.
“You almost killed me,” she said, all the colour gone from her voice as she raised her head.
“I never almost do anything,” I replied, but as I made a show of placing the gun on the tabletop, I tried to push away the horror of what I’d done.
I let the air hang with silence, watching the sharp contours of her face in the flickering orange light, looking at her as if the first time. Her soft skin unblemished with stubble. The purse of her lips. Despite the short hair and her clothes, it was so obvious now.
She took at least a minute to move; any longer and I was ready to walk out of the door, the anger returning as the shock of my actions subsided. If she came with me, she’d see so much worse by the end of the day.
Moving to the sink, Alex leant against the metal basin, letting water from the tap dribble into the bowl before pushing another glass from the draining board and holding it until it overflowed.
Leaving her in peace, I waited for the glass to finish; waited for her turn before I spoke.
“I’m sorry but you need to know this is real. The dead walk the streets, infecting more each minute. Tomorrow it will be so much worse, people will wake to the horror and it will overcome them.”
She turned back, following my gaze. She’d seen something out there, I’d seen it too. Fear forced her back from the window.
“There are people out there trying to help. The military. The police, but others will use this as an excuse.”
White as a sheet, she turned back towards me, but flinched to the window at the sound of a glass bottle rolling along the road.
“And that’s not the worst,” I said, raising my eyebrows. I didn’t finish my words and she didn’t ask what I’d meant.
Taking a deep breath and swallowing hard, she was about to speak, but stopped herself as she turned, pushing the glass under the tap until water rolled over her fingers.
“What are you trying to do?” she said once she’d gulped the water down.
I let a smile rise in the corner of my mouth.
“I’m trying to let everyone know. It’s the biggest story in history, but unless they see it coming down the road, they'll have no chance. They won’t be prepared.”
She stared on, her gaze turning down to the gun.
“So why do you need that?” Alex said, her voice soft and slow.
“I need to survive,” I replied, my gaze following hers. “I won’t give a shit when I’m dead and not in control.”
“And why do you need me?”
“I need someone to help me get my cameras back.” She raised her eyebrows before letting them fall. “I had to leave them behind.”
“Why me?”
“I thought you had big balls,” I said, but immediately realised my mistake and she turned her head to the side, squinting. “I thought you would be able to handle it. You have skills I need,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “And I can help you.”
She looked down to the gun again before meeting my eyes and I spoke again.
“I’m surviving. I know how to survive. I can help you stay alive.”
Her brow furrowed and a question formed on her lips. She didn’t give it voice, instead turning to the blue lights building in the darkness outside.
Alex stayed quiet as a strobe of light raced past the window. I knew she would turn as the lights faded, but they didn’t disappear. Instead, a great screech came from outside, from beyond the angle of the window no matter how far she craned around.
She twisted back, looked at me as if she wanted to know what we should do, but turned to the window again when I gave no response.
I stood by her side, eyebrows raised. An orange glow mixed with the flash of blue, searing through our night vision with every pulse.
I shook my head and spoke. “I might have been wrong about you. In more than one way.”
She twisted back and forth to the window, each time looking at me with her brows low.
“We can’t help them,” I said, looking to the window, but before the words settled in the air, a shock wave from outside shattered the glass, pushing Alex toward me.
The pressure hit before I could move. Before I could steady myself, a bright light surged through the room.
It took a moment for my senses to recover. It was darker than before, my body covered with a great weight.
I hit out at what lay over me, but it wouldn’t move. It lay lifeless across me as my ears rang, the room getting brighter with dust and smoke catching in my throat.
62
“Fire.” The word came slow from my dry throat. “Fire,” I repeated, heaving against the force on my chest.
Alarms rose and fell in the street.
Car horns bellowed for attention.
Bright lights flashed in and out like a white disco, singing to the music of embers crackling and the burn of plastic. Searing hot smoke thickened and collected in my lungs.
With a great heave I rolled the weight to the floor, glass scratching under my trainers as I pulled myself up against the table. Snatching the gun, I leant heaving for breath while squinting around the room. The pizza boxes were just embers glowing orange, flames licking along the adjacent unit to the microwave, which was already melting, its plastic dripping down the counter to drop liquid fire to the floor.
I turned to the doorway, glass strewn between me and escape. Checking my feet, I found the oversized shoes still there.
My gaze fell on Alex. She had been the dead weight.
I pushed my hand into the crook of my elbow, nudging her hard with my foot. When she didn’t respond I admonished myself for a thought even though it had no time to form.
Turning to the doorway, I pushed the Glock into the band of my skirt and gripped her under the shoulders. Nails pulled hard with each tug. Her body moved with each pull, sweeping glass along the floor. Soot smudged in her path, but we were soon through the doorway with only a short distance left to escape.
I fished the key from Alex’s pocket and praised my fortune when it turned, smoke billowing from behind me as the first chill of fresh night air sucked deep into my lungs. We were over the step before her body complained, our lungs heaving, coughing as the icy air hit our faces. A cacophony assaulted our ears.
With heat pouring from the house at my back, I stared at the scene of destruction while I dragged Alex a few more steps away from the house. I pulled her backward into the road, the pathway blocked by parked cars pushed over, including hers, which I found resting on its door. The tang of petrol hung heavy in the air.
What I could only guess was once the police car sat in the road just a short step away. Black smoke poured from the multicoloured flames dancing i
nside its glowing red cage, with no sign of what caused the crash.
Along the street, half the houses, ten or more, whose owners were yet to update to double glazing, had no glass remaining, except for the odd finger dangling down, ready to fall at an inopportune moment.
We were the first out, but not the only house on fire. Two others, both opposite the centre of the blast were alight. Only now people burst into the street, followed by smoke, trailing tears and pained, longing looks for their worldly possessions.
Fingers jabbed at the screens of mobile phones, but I could see even from the other side of the street they weren’t able to make the call. Maybe no one would come. Maybe no one could come.
Alarms of all tones continued to ring, boxes on the side of houses strobed. The headlights of parked cars flashed. Heat-cracked wood split the air.
As I looked down, I watched Alex sit up. I let my lungs clear with each cold breath, the sting of petrol vapour in each intake. I grabbed at Alex’s shirt. She looked up as I shouted and tried scrabbling to her feet, eventually able to get up with my hand as a guide.
“Petrol,” I shouted out into the street, pointing back as I squinted to the orange light.
No one took note. My cotton-wool-filled head shook as we got to what I thought would be a safe distance.
“Petrol, get back.” I shouted this time, my voice hoarse and with little power.
Alex joined me to make a chorus, but her voice gave little help against the chiming of the bells and the two-tone alarms. I looked around and saw the street filling, everyone at home for the season.
Families stood in their pyjamas, some covered with dressing gowns. People cried, children screamed, others held torches.
Along the road a crowd built. Figures walked towards us, ambling in a daze. The noise had woken the street, had woken the village and the army base by the look of those coming down towards us.
