by Luke Kondor
Susie lifted the bow and drew one of the five arrows from her rucksack. Quietly, she placed the arrow against the bow and pulled on the string. It creaked as the metal fibres twisted and split. Her draw hand touched her anchor point at the base of her chin. She steadied her breathing.
It looked at her with its little black marbled eyes. It shifted its whole body as if to face her. As if it were trying to communicate.
“I’m sorry, little guy,” she whispered as she let the arrow fly.
It whipped forward, whistling an angry tune as it pierced through the wind and caught the rabbit in its rump. The thing bounced off the ground with the force of the projectile and rolled a good foot away from its foraging point.
She skipped over to it, planted her boot firmly against its hide, and yanked the arrow straight out. She wiped it down with her trouser leg and placed it back with the others, where its metal head got a fresh dousing of bleach at the base of her quiver. She pulled out a plastic shopping bag (a ‘bag for life’, living up to its name), and placed the rabbit inside, making sure not to meet its eyes. She didn’t mind the blood. But no way could she meet those eyes with her own. They were the windows to the soul after all. A soul she’d just released from its mortal coil.
With a fresh catch rustling in her carrier bag, stinking up her walk with the gamey smell of a hunt, she walked on past the school, following the rusted fences and dilapidated streets.
Broken glass popped underfoot as she passed a bus stop. The same bearded man sat there, as he did every day. Lazily slumped on the metal bench, waiting for a bus that would never come. His features looking a little more petrified each passing day as if he were turning into a fossil right before her eyes. Something to be dug up in a million years and placed in a museum.
Pompeii 2.0 – the real disaster.
There were more bodies, of course. A forest of them in their various poses. A woman in a concertinaed Ford Fiesta with her head bowed in against the steering wheel. A child laying outside the school gates as if she were simply napping. Even the shape of an Alsatian, looking more like a sanded-down sculpture of itself, weathered by years of winds and acid rain.
The whole town had a story to tell. One punctuated with the bullet holes of the military and brought to life with the innocent screams and cries of the wrongfully accused.
It was as if a military unit had stormed through the town under the impression that it had become a cesspit of rot, but that wasn’t the case. These folks weren’t rotters. These were human. And one day, many years in the future, Susie was going to gather up all of these bodies, and burn them. Give them something of a proper send-off. A funeral worthy of the Northmen, the Vikings, who invaded the shores so many years ago. Maybe she’d even carve up some sort of makeshift plaque.
Here lie the remains of the people of King’s Hill. Now cross your heart, sing a sad song, and get back to it, soldier. There’s plenty of work to be done.
Before she knew it, she’d left the town centre and was already nearing the camp. She could smell the burning of the fires, could hear the laughter of children, axes chopping wood. The black and white sign to her left read ‘Pipping Way’.
And, as she passed the Xing’s Corner with its Chinese takeaway menus still taped to the glass doors, she saw it. The big circle of green. The fences. Tents. Caravans. The smoke. The second generation residents of King’s Hill. Not those that littered the town, melting into their surroundings, but the living breathing ones. The survivors of the new world.
*
King’s Hill was a small town, but a town nonetheless. Residential houses and corner shops. Some boarded up. All empty. When the first of the survivors arrived several years ago, they fled straight past the houses in fear of the horrors which may have been hiding within. It was by sheer chance that they found the large circular patch of soft grass in the centre. Trees circled the entire site. And it seemed as good a place as any to park their dying cars and pitch their tents.
“You best be checking that thing for worms before you skin it,” the man with the Enfield rifle said as he unlocked the makeshift gate and let her in. Two finger lines of mud crossed his face, and a new hole joined the others in his tatty red beanie hat.
“Shut the fuck up, Keaghan,” said Susie with a smile.
He smiled back and nodded his head. His thick black curls bouncing over his ears.
“I’m just saying exactly what boss man is going to be saying. You know what he’s like with things found in the wild. Things that breathed.”
“Man was a veggie for five years before the rot. I guess it’s a tough habit to break. But I’m pretty sure I just told you to shut the fuck up.”
“Okay. Gotcha. Shutting up now,” Keaghan laughed, waving her through. Once Susie was safely inside, he turned and locked it back up. Three heavy duty Yale locks. Top, middle, and bottom. The connective tissue that held each of the wire mesh panels together. At least a hundred of them. All rummaged from the construction sites on the industrial side of town. The fences circled the campsite and were fortified by four watchmen along the perimeter, all looking out for wanderers and rotters, waiting to holler with the referee whistles tied to their necks.
Before she left Keaghan to his duties she swung the bag with the carcass up towards his head. He ducked just in time, calling her a ‘psycho’, before Susie sauntered further on, past the three square patches of land which were supposed to be growing fresh vegetables but had only managed two and a half carrots so far. Petrov, King’s Hill’s so-called farmer, was digging his fingers into the ground, either fishing for produce or planting seeds. She wasn’t sure. Either way, he looked up and eyed the bag – the mealy contents casting a delicious shadow within. She could practically hear the saliva forming in his mouth.
“Are we eating meat tonight, then?” he called with his thick European accent.
“I don’t know, Petrov. You bring us a side of veg, I might let you have the rabbit’s balls.”
He mocked offence, but she barely noticed. Walking past the rows of caravans, jumping over the pit, still black and smoking from the previous night’s fires, she made her way to her father’s shack. A wheel-less caravan made from Formica and the holidays of many a retiree. The old grout had extended it with a canvas sheet that jutted out of the side, supported by several steel poles, where it cornered over and was pulled taut to the ground with a selection of muddy bricks.
“You leave that thing out there, Suze,” Beckett called through the window, his voice hoarse and tired. “I don’t want fleas or lice or whatever that thing has.”
She placed the bag on the floor by the bricks, along with her bow and rucksack before sidling herself in the gap between two overlapping sheets of canvas and into her father’s domain.
“Only thing carrying fleas is you, Dad.”
He was sat by the open door of his caravan, wrapped in two weathered coats with a fluffy trapper hat pulled tightly onto his head. The deck chair he was sat on looked ready to disintegrate beneath him. He didn’t smile. He didn’t say ‘Hi’.
“You shouldn’t be going out alone, Suze. Those estates are a great place for people to hide. There may be no rotters anymore, but we need to stay alert for—”
“—Scavvies, I know.”
“Do you? Because the reckless way you act sometimes makes me wonder if you even care about this town. Our people. You’re a leader, Suze. My own daughter. And soon I may not be around to—”
Here he coughed into his hand. Not a tickly cough, but one that wheezed long after the initial exhalation. One that sounded like the lungs were twisting, squeezing like rubber on sand.
“Dad, you should be inside. You know the cold air only upsets your lungs.”
He waved his free hand as his face reddened, trying to catch his breath.
Susie waited patiently. This man, who was once a force of nature, someone who once commanded respect, who gave people the confidence to band together in their kingdom on the hill, seemed to be getting worse day
by day. Where once he could have stood for the very figure of masculinity, now his skin was ever more pale, his complexion turning sallow, his eyes sinking into his skull, his beard growing ever more spindly like each hair might dry up and snap away like wheat on a blazed field.
It seemed to happen fast, too. Not a month ago Beckett had been out on a raiding party with several of King’s Hill’s patrolmen. Part of their monthly effort to clear out some of the dead, and explore the surrounding buildings in the hopes of finding something that they had missed. Maybe a cupboard full of tinned fruit. Maybe a nest of foxes or badgers to kill and eat (well, not so much for Beckett). But it seemed age had caught up with him rapidly and was suckling on him, draining his life force.
“Are the others back yet?” he said, finally, wiping flecks of spit with his hand.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“And Quinton?”
She looked to the stack of old Stephen King novels on the floor by her father’s feet, the warped covers, pages speckled with mildew, the man’s library of entertainment which he’d been carrying with him since they first left their house in Guildford. Doing anything to avoid his eyes.
“Suze… he’s your son. What’s wrong with you? Where’s your concern? It’s his first time out on a cache drop and you have no idea whatsoever? What if something were to happen to him? What if they were to find some sort of—”
“Find what, Dad?” She felt herself growing warm now. “The rot’s fucking gone. I ain’t seen a scavvie in years. We haven’t seen anyone. At all! The only things I see alive now are the things I shoot, skin, and eat. Even those over there at Hope might be figments of our imagination for all I fucking know. Maybe I’m losing my mind, writing myself little notes in those cache drop books. Quinton is a grown up now. He’s strong. Some might call him a man…” But as she spoke she couldn’t hide the faltering confidence in her voice. She took a steadying breath. “He’s a man now, Dad. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need his mother anymore.”
Silence passed between them as the wind picked up and hammered the sides of the tent, threatening to rip the sheets from their poles and carry the green canvas over the fence and out into the town. Beckett took a deep wheezy breath. He was struggling. She heard it in his voice. He placed his hands against his chin and leant back. His stern eyes, still strong and white, piercing her even in this low light.
“Is it that he doesn’t need you, Suze? Or is it you who doesn’t need him?”
She went to answer but left her mouth to flap. The question was one she knew had been coming but hadn’t exactly been prepared for. It wasn’t that she didn’t need her son. She just… couldn’t look at him and not see her husband.
Before she could glean any kind of response, there came a shout from afar. The blowing of a whistle. A second later, two distance shots of gunfire.
Susie looked disbelievingly at her father.
“Go,” Beckett said, for a second looking like the authoritative figure he had once been. “Grab your bow and go.”
~ 2 ~
The roads were fake. Most of it was. The paths were packed dirt lined with wood-chips. Fences lined the walkways. After every five of the cabins there sat a small children’s play area. Fake plastic trees with silly faces painted onto the sides and slides for the kids to glide down. Next to them were swings and rocking horses fixed to springs in the ground. All unused. All wasted.
On each corner of the play areas were maps fixed to posts. Illustrations with cartoon red-chested robins pointing to the swimming baths, the canoe boats, the cycle-cottage, and even the bowling alley. Sure, there were birds singing in the oaks and pines around them and the holiday park was situated in a real wooded area, but something about it seemed off to Colin. It was designed to give people the experience of living out in the woods, but with all the sheen of a five-star hotel. An outdoor expedition with a courtesy spa day session.
This place, Hope, it felt manufactured.
“You beens eating, yes?” Anton said, placing his hand on Colin’s shoulder, pulling him away from his thoughts. The wind chilled his skin to gooseflesh, but the Dutchman’s smile was warm enough to coax a grin out of him.
“Yes, Anton. I got your package. Thanks for that.”
The hand left his shoulder and Anton stepped over a puddle. Colin caught a glimpse of his reflection in its surface and was taken aback to see the skin of his freshly-shaved chin again. The hair, too. No longer a clump of matted locks but neatly hacked away to leave less than half an inch all over. His head felt naked and cold and, in a way, he missed the vagabond thatch he’d been sporting for the past three or so years. He was dressed in his new clothes, too. Gifts from the fabled Henry and his Hopeful cohorts. Shortly after his arrival at Hope, Colin had been introduced to Iggy Springfield, an ever-smiling man who could work wonders with old clothing using nothing but his creativity and his treadle sewing machine. Even Colin’s coat, a thick black woolly thing with a fluffy interior which fit snugly to his form was patched together by Iggy. To Colin, it felt like he was wearing something comfier than his own bed. His khaki trousers, already muddy, were free of holes and his boots reminded him of the ones his father used to use for his weekly rambling trek through Epping Forest. He almost felt ashamed that they were already caked in thick dirt from his morning walks.
“Speakings of food,” Anton began with an awkward glance at Colin, “you should try to come to the dinner tonight. Everyone is still waiting to hear from you. The Hopefuls. They’ve heard of this great warrior from the farmlands, and are itching to put a face to the legend.” He paused a moment, observing Colin. Waiting for any kind of reaction. But his companion just continued to walk with a grim look ahead. “You’ve already beens here for a week, Colin. And the Hopefuls only know of the stranger sleeping out there in the outer ring of cabins on his owns. I hates to say it but it’s kinds of creepy. Besides, the others miss you. Ria, Sunny, Joanna.”
At the last two, Colin looked up, a strange expression shadowing his face.
“Just keep the beans coming, Dutchman. Your daily care packages are all I need, okay? Just be happy with that for now.”
“But we can’t be doing this forever, Colin. You have to come out of your shell—”
“I’m here ain’t I?” Colin said, louder than he intended. “Ain’t we alive? Ain’t we surviving? What more do you want?”
Silence passed for a while as they walked along the furthest perimeter line of Hope. He had to admit, the holiday village was a great place to lock yourself away from the world outside and these Hopefuls had struck gold in finding it. The place had made for an expensive vacation destination years ago. The kind of place where you paid with pounds of flesh to get in and the owners invested a lot of cash to keep people out. A utopia for you and your family where you needn’t worry about the scum outside. The fences were solid, tall, and barbed along the top. On this side, they were decorated with vines and overgrowth, but he was sure there’d still be yellow placards on the other side somewhere, warning that trespassers would be prosecuted.
Yet, while all of the built-in security was fine, Hope still warranted a morning patrol. Especially after what had happened at the run-down factory in Ditton. They had seen it first-hand – Colin, Ria, Anton, Sunny, and Joanna – and they had told Henry of the events which transpired. Contrary to popular belief, the rot wasn’t gone at all. And it was near enough on their doorstep. These morning walks of Colin’s and Anton’s weren’t for fun. They could mean life and death for the naive people living within the fences, who, under Henry’s orders, were kept blissfully ignorant of the truth.
Somewhere further up Colin heard the echoes of dogs. It was faint enough to think it might have been in his own head. An image of Wheat flashed in his mind.
“Have you at least spoken to Sunny… or Joanna? They’ve beens coming to the dinners but I haven’t been able to talk much with them yet. I wonder if something has been bothering the little one. I don’t think I’ve seen him speak at
all since we came back. You don’ts know if he’s a sufferer of social anxiety, do you?”
Colin’s lips tightened into a thin line, almost a pale scar. He closed his eyes and released a breath, not wanting to even think about Sunny – the eight-year-old kid with unknowable power. That night still burned into his mind and replayed every time he lay his head down to sleep. That first night in Hope, when Sunny had laid between Colin and Joanna, snug and tight as though he were their own. When he had awoken with a start and said two words which made Colin’s heart thump double-speed.
‘Who’s Fletcher?’
Colin had been dumbstruck at the question and spent the next few hours trying to draw out more information from the boy. Trying to glean where the question had come from, what it could mean. The boy had powers beyond the ordinary, that much was clear. Yet even Joanna seemed to not know the full extent of what Sunny was capable of. The same boy who had spoken to the spore-cluster at Ditton. The same kid who had somehow sensed and found the first live sample of the rot anyone had seen in years.
The very same child who had since fallen mute, not a word passing his lips – no matter how frustrated and angry Colin had gotten at the mention of his only child’s name.
How could Sunny have just come out with Fletcher’s name like that? There’s no way he could’ve known. Luck? Chance? What the hell did it mean? Questions left to plague Colin’s fragile mind.
He’s gone. They’re both gone…
He’d failed to save them and that was that. Move on and make do, Col. That’s about the best you can hope for now.
More silence passed. The only sound was of their boots pressing into the muddy ground.
“You knows, Henry’s been asking for you.”
“He has?”
“Yes. He says you have a lacks of purpose.”
“Yeah? Not contributing to the greater good or something? The old codger gonna throw me out?”
