by Jack Lewis
“You’re a funny lady,” said Charles. “Let me share something with you. Forget the Resistance for a minute; they're worms in the soil. There’s more to the rumours of the mouth-breathers, and I think you’ll find it interesting.”
“Go on,” said Stephanie. Her voice was cold and given their predicament, Dale wished she’d seem a bit less hostile.
“They say the mouth-breathers are a woman with two children,” said Charles, and turned away from Stephanie and looked at the children. “Twins.”
Ice spread across Dale’s chest. He knew where this was going, but he didn’t know how to stop it. Charles’s leather coat creaked as he stepped forward.
“It’s a funny thing this genetic mutation, don’t you think? That some of us are immune yet others get hungry for flesh. And the cruel trick of it is that the only way you can find out is to contract the virus in the first place. Breathe tainted air. Get bitten by one of them. How long do the virus comas last, by the way?”
“A couple of hours “said Stephanie.
Charles’s eyes lit up. “Caught you, mouth-breather,” he said, smiling. He put his hand to his chest and laughed. “No, you’re right. Roughly a couple of hours in a coma and you wake a person, or a monster. There are some who think the mouth-breathers are still monsters, just a different kind. But I don’t take stock in that.”
Then why do you use the words, thought Dale? Mouth-breather was a term that sickened him, yet it was used by everyone these days. Some used it because they hated those lucky enough to be immune. Others just said it out of fear of displeasing the Capita.
“We better get going,” said Stephanie, and looked up at the sky where the colour had shifted to a dark grey. “It’s getting late.”
“Do you mind if I speak to your children?” said Charles.
“I’d rather you didn’t. We need to get back,” said Dale.
They’re my children, he thought. Mine and Stephanie’s. Suddenly there was no doubt that they were a family. They just needed to leave the meadow, leave Charles Bull behind. Suddenly the path away from the meadow seemed miles away, yet the Capita’s bulbous Dome swelled larger than ever across the horizon.
Charles turned his head to Dale. Beneath his black mask, his eyes gave a look that chilled Dale’s skin.
“Don’t mistake my politeness for weakness.”
He walked up to the children and towered over them. Most people, when speaking to children, crouched to their level. Charles just stood above them, his pickaxe hanging from his back, his bulky frame blotting out the sky. Charles studied the children for seconds that seemed to drag out. He looked especially interested in Eric.
“Your boy’s mask is damaged,” he said. He crouched beside Dale. “You better get him inside, pronto, before it breaks completely. Or better still, maybe I should fix it now? Hold your breath, little boy. We don’t want any of those nasty bugs getting in.”
He reached forward and ripped the mask from Eric’s face. The boy’s cheeks bulged as he held the air in. Thank god he had the presence of mind to pretend to hold his breath. Anything other action would have given him away. Stephanie had taught him well.
Charles fiddled with the straps of Eric’s mask, puzzling over it as if it were a Rubix cube. Eric’s face turned red as he held in air under the pretence that he needed it, that he couldn’t breathe the air without a mask. His cheeks puffed out more, and blood seeped through them and coloured them crimson.
Come on, thought Dale. He watched Charles mess around with the mask. Hurry up, you bastard.
Eric shifted uncomfortably and his cheeks grew even redder. He looked on the verge of breathing, and if that happened, the game was done. Charles would figure out that Eric was immune, or he would expect the boy to become infected. Either way, it would involve a trip to the Dome.
Finally Charles seemed satisfied with the mask. He reached out to hand it across to Eric. Dale felt his pulse thud. Eric stuck his hand out for his mask, but at the last second Charles yanked it away.
“Almost there. Just one more fix thing to fix.”
Eric’s face was a balloon ready to pop, and he squirmed as though he were desperate for the toilet. As his agitation increased, so did Dale’s heartrate. Eric looked at Stephanie with wide, pleading eyes. He was about to give up and take a breath.
Just in time, Charles handed back the mask and strapped it to the boy’s face. Eric took deep, devouring breaths and then slumped against his mother.
Well done, thought Dale. You did good, lad.
Charles looked at Stephanie.
“No reaction? I have to say, I’m a little surprised. Your son nearly filled his lungs with infected air, and in a few hours his goodnight kiss on mummy’s cheek could have turned into a chunk of her neck. You don’t seem too upset about it.”
Dale didn’t know what to say, and it seemed Stephanie felt the same way.
“Still, I guess the masks don’t help, do they?” Charles said. “You might be beside yourself, for all I know. It’s hard to read a person’s feelings when they wear a mask.”
There was a thud beside them. Dale turned and saw Luna on the floor. The girl’s head jerked back and banged against the ground, and her body started to jerk violently. She looked as if she was being zapped by invisible cattle-prods.
Oh shit, Dale thought. Not now.
Charles rubbed his head. He stood over the girl and watched her spasm. Stephanie got to her knees. She took off her cardigan and cushioned it under the girl’s head. Dale expected her to be worried, but she moved with the deliberate calm of a nurse.
“This looks to be an epileptic fit,” said Charles, amusement in his voice. “What to do, what to do? If my knowledge is right, you need to check she hasn’t swallowed her tongue. To do that you’d need to take off her mask, but the girl doesn’t seem to be in the state of mind to hold her breath. Oh my.”
Since they had come to live with him, Dale had only ever seen Luna had one fit. She used to have them all the time, Stephanie had told him, but they were getting fewer and she hoped she was growing out of them. That didn’t help now, though. It was the worst possible time for it to happen.
Stephanie ran her hands through her hair. There was nothing else she could do. No way to pretend, no way out of it. She took hold of Luna’s mask and removed it. She opened her daughter’s mouth and stuck her own fingers inside and made sure she hadn’t swallowed her tongue.
Dale stepped forward. He knew what was going to happen now. Luna would be taken, and the Capita would expect her to fall into a coma. They’d wait and see if she became infected. Only, that wouldn’t happen. They would find out Luna was immune, and Dale had heard the stories of what would happen next. He couldn’t let her be taken to the Capita on her own.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re immune. Me and Luna. Kids always get it off their parents and, well, she got it from me. My lad didn’t get it.”
Charles moved forward and stood alongside Dale. He put a heavy arm across his shoulders and waved a finger in the air.
“But it’s not always from parents, is it Dale? There’s another way one can become immune.”
“What?”
“I digress. I don’t really believe your story. No. This is a classic case of a man trying to be a martyr. It’s scary, trying to be a martyr. Do you know what happens in the Capita, Dale? Is your mind conjuring up dark images? Dungeons, torture, experiments? I think you’re brave. You’re stupid, but you’re brave.”
He looked up at Stephanie.
“Take off your mask, darling.”
Stephanie stood up from Luna’s side and backed away from the bounty hunter. Charles walked up to her. He reached out and took her by the throat, his gloved hand wrapping around her neck and stopping the flow of air.
Suddenly Dale’s chest burst with electricity and he felt adrenaline spill into his veins. He couldn’t watch Charles’s hand close around Stephanie's throat. The sight of it set a flare inside him. He rushed at the bounty hunter.
Charles turned, swung his fist and connected with Dale’s nose. Dale fell to the floor and a fuzzy pain spread through his face. If the pain in his cheeks weren’t enough, a feeling of shame spread through him. He couldn’t protect his family. The Capita wanted them, and Dale couldn’t protect them.
Charles grabbed Stephanie’s mask and pulled it away from her face. Stephanie’s skin was chalk, her confidence gone as the reality of the situation hit her. Her usually red lips looked drained of colour like she’d been walking in a blizzard.
“This man isn’t the children’s father, is he?” said Charles.
Stephanie didn’t speak. Charles wrapped his gloved hand tighter around her neck, a farmer wringing the neck of a chicken. He moved his arm and slowly lifted Stephanie off the ground with an impossible show of strength. She spluttered. She swung her feet in the air as though trapped in a noose.
“Do you want your children to see their mother murdered in front of them?”
Stephanie shook her head furiously.
“Then tell me. Is he the children’s father?”
“No,” she choked out.
The bounty hunter relaxed his grip and let Stephanie touch the ground. He wiped his hand on his coat, and Stephanie’s spit left a streak on the leather.
“Sorry about that. But needs must.”
He waved his gloved hand in the air. There was movement across the field, and a few minutes later a horse and cart galloped to meet them. A driver directed the horse by pulling on black reigns, and on the back were four soldiers clad in Capita uniforms. Three of them had the blank stares of disciplined soldiers, but one looked at the terrified family with curiosity.
The fog cleared from Dale’s vision. He put a hand on the ground and pushed himself to his feet. The wind had picked up again, and it blew against cheeks that felt flushed with anger. How had his special day changed so suddenly? His future had changed from an open plain to a darkened maze.
Charles turned to his men.
“Take the woman and the children to the farms.”
“What about the man?”
“Take his mask off. Let him smell the air one last time and then kill him.”
Dale couldn’t let them be taken. Not now that they were a family, not when he finally believed that Stephanie felt the same about him. For years after the outbreak he had searched for a meaning to survival, and now he had found it. He couldn’t let Charles take it from him.
He threw himself at the soldier nearest to him and swung a punch at the underside of the man’s jaw. He grabbed hold of the machete in the soldier’s hand and took it in his own. Another soldier, the curious one, ran at him. Dale swung his weapon and the metal scratched across the soldier’s cheek, tearing his skin open. Blood bubbled through the cut, and the man put his hand to his face and cried out. A different soldier pointed across the meadow.
“Sir, the boy!”
In the commotion Eric had taken off across the field and was running through the grass as fast as he could. As he sped out of sight his mask slipped from his face. He stopped and picked it up from the ground. He gave one last look back at his family.
Dale wanted to shout at him to run, and to be safe. Before he could even open his mouth he felt something blunt smash down on the back of his head. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, and the meadow began to fade away into darkness. He struggled against the black and tried to fight for his consciousness but it slipped from his grip.
“What do we do about the boy?” he heard someone ask.
Charles’s voice spoke in answer.
“Let him go. We’ll round him up eventually. We always do.”
1
Ed Furness
Golgoth Island, 2 miles away from the mainland
Ed stood at the edge of the cliff and watched the dark waves as they crashed into the rocks. Back and forth they came, grinding against the chalk and carrying some of it away with them. Ed had wasted every damn second of his life. If he took a small step forward - not even a jump was needed, just a little step - what would be left? Someday the waves would grind Golgoth Island away without a trace, and what of Ed would ever be found? He hadn’t accomplished anything. His family were gone. He spoke to nobody, did nothing of any importance. If a complete history of the world was ever written, Ed's life would barely get a sentence.
A twenty-foot wave crashed against the cliffs, the frothy tip straining to reach Ed. He tasted salt in the air, and felt the rain patter onto his forehead and run down his face. They’d all have to leave Golgoth one day and go to the mainland. Probably not due to the erosion, because that would take decades to claim the island. The problem was that their crops were failing. There was no medicine, and it wasn’t as if they could just order a delivery. Golgoth’s strength was its remoteness, but in the end its isolation would damn it.
A grey cloud spread across the sky, and below the cliffs another wave smashed into the stone. Ed remembered the newscasts, back when his TV worked. The pictures of the infected; eyes grey, dead. Mouths opening to scream or to bite. The infected were akin to the tide, in a way. No sooner did one wave leave than another replaced it. They were relentless, devouring everything in their path.
Sometimes he thought about taking that little step forward off the edge, but not right now. He’d do it when the tide was gone. If he did it while the tide was strong there was a chance he’d die by drowning, and he preferred the idea of his head hitting the ground. Instant oblivion seemed much nicer than slow agony as salt water poured down his throat and into his lungs.
How did James feel when he drowned? Had Ed’s brother’s life flashed in front of him? As he spluttered on the sea water did he scream for their long-dead mother? Maybe he cried out for their father. He hadn’t been dead as long, but he was already a memory fading into the void where even the most familiar of faces became impossible to recall.
“Looks to be a mean one,” said a voice.
He turned and saw the woman who lived in the house closest to his.
“Hi Elizabeth.”
“Close. It’s Bethelyn. But don’t worry, we’ve only lived next to each other for eight years.”
He sighed. He knew he was being rude, but he couldn’t help it. Sometimes he wondered what was wrong with him.
“Sorry, Bethelyn.”
“Don’t worry, I get it. I know it’s been tough for you.”
As the wind shrieked in his ear and rain ran into his coat and down his back, it struck him that Bethelyn’s voice was the warmest thing for miles. It made him want to get away from her. To go home, shut his front door and twist the key.
Bethelyn joined him at the cliff side. He expected the height of the drop to make her shaky, but she didn’t even look down.
“Apparently some scientist did a study on Golgoth once,” she said, tucking her hands into her pockets. “They found that the sea claims a foot of the island a year. Imagine that. Soon enough this place will be drowned.”
The wind dropped for a second as if her words had given it something to think about, but soon it started wailing louder than before, and the rain came down heavier. The island was gloomy as hell at night time, and Ed couldn’t help but think it contributed to his own disposition. He knew what he was; a miserable arsehole. Knowing something about yourself didn’t mean you could necessarily do anything about it.
Bethelyn looked at him. “Do you think anyone will be around to see it when it goes?”
“Maybe. Not sure if they’d be the lucky ones or not.”
She scrunched her nose up as a rain drop hit her. “You’re a barrel of laughs,” she said.
“Sorry Bethelyn. I came here to be alone.”
“Alone from who? You live by yourself.”
“This place just feels more alone than others.”
She nodded. “I know. I’ve seen you. Listen, Ed, I was wondering. The storm’s gonna hit us head on. There’s a few slates loose on my roof and I don’t need rain soaking through. I could do with someone getting up there
.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I wouldn’t normally ask, but I need the help.”
***
If it were the sort of word Ed would ever say, he would have described Bethelyn’s living room as cosy. On a table in the centre of the room a dozen tiny candles burnt and cast an orange glow over the walls. On the west wall a fire hissed and chewed through the logs that Bethelyn had set on it. Everything was in its place but out of it at the same time, a sort of orchestrated chaos. On a bookshelf by the windowsill some books were stood up, and others were on their sides as though they had fallen down. Despite their haphazard arrangement, they were grouped together by the colour of their spines.
