by RR Haywood
The boy blinks then blanches. The anger draining instantly from his face.
‘Her arm came off,’ he says quickly as though trying to explain. Gregori ignores him and walks to another body. Without glancing at the boy he grabs the ankle and starts dragging it across the lawn towards the growing mound at the far side.
‘Her arm came off,’ the boy repeats, ‘Gregori…Gregoreeee….her arm came off.’
The Albanian shows no reaction but stares ahead with a face devoid of expression.
‘Sorry, Gregoreee….’ The boy runs to the side of the adult and tries grabbing the other ankle.
‘What I say?’
‘What?’ The boy asks while trying to help by clutching ineffectually at the other leg.
‘What I say about anger?’
‘Her arm came off,’ the boy huffs.
‘And this make you angry?’ Gregori asks, ‘you waste energy. You waste time. You gain nothing from this.’
‘But…’
‘You no listen. You no learn. You…’
‘I am learning, Gregoreee. Honestly I am.’
‘Why you do this then?’
‘Her arm came off and I fell down and…and…’
‘And and and…’ Gregori mocks the tone, ‘and nothing. You let anger win. You waste it.’
‘Sorry,’ the boy drops his head and stays quiet while they drag the body to the mound and heave it to the top.
‘No,’ Gregori slaps the boy’s hand as he goes to wipe his face, ‘what I tell you about this? You no listen.’
‘Sorry,’ the boy says again and drops his hands to his sides.
‘They have disease. Disease get in you and you are like they.’
‘Sorry.’
‘No be sorry. Don’t do these things.’
‘Okay.’
‘Go wash and rest.’
‘I don’t need to rest.’
Gregori looks down at the red face shining with sweat. Working all morning and the bodies used as practise kills were left littering the ground to create obstacles the boy had to navigate while bludgeoning, hacking, stabbing and killing the infected brought back in the van. Now the ground is being cleared and a funeral pyre created to burn off the ones killed to make room for the next.
‘Wash. Rest,’ Gregori knows the boy will work. He also knows the boy will rub his face and touch his mouth. He also knows the boy has already rubbed his face and touched his mouth and was stood-by waiting to kill him should the change come. When the boy didn’t change Gregori put it down to either pure chance or something else. The something else would be that the boy is immune and given the fact the infected people didn’t show any reaction to the boy made Gregori even more resolute to watch him closely.
Gregori had noticed it yesterday. The boy was practising using a wooden baseball bat while weaving in and out of the staggering men and women. They groaned and made noises. They drooled and held their hands clawed and ready but not once did they try and lunge for the boy.
It was Gregori they wanted. The Albanian saw time and again the openings the unskilled boy left and watched as the undead should have lunged there, clawed there, bitten there but they didn’t. Gregori moved round the killing field, watching as the undead followed and tracked his movements.
The boy appeared heedless to this knowledge and whipped in and around them to strike and batter with the bat.
‘Knees,’ Gregori said again and again. Eventually the boy got it and the strikes began to gain direction and aim. The boy would strike with all his strength into the stomach or sides to virtually no effect. With much less force but with greater control the strike delivered to the leg joint would cause the body to fall. Once the boy learnt this he went faster from male to female striking to make them fall. When the last one dropped he whooped and jumped up and down excitedly then waited for them to get back up so he could do it again.
The killing blows were harder. Taking a body down with a bat is easy. Making it stay down was far more difficult.
A hard strike to the head sent a jarring shockwave from the thick skull up the bat and into the arms of the boy. Gregori let this happened several times before stepping in.
‘Skull thick,’ he said after taking the bat from the boy and tapping it dully to the side of an adult woman’s head, ‘neck soft,’ he poked the end of the bat into the soft flesh of the groaning woman’s neck.
‘This…this is spine,’ Gregori felt the back of the boy’s neck and tapped lightly at the hard ridge of bones, ‘break this and the body no move…it die…watch…’
Like a golfer taking a swing Gregori aimed and swooshed the bat in a wide arc to connect with the side of the woman’s head snapping it over to the side with an audible crack.
‘Is she dead?’ The boy peered down.
‘She dead. I break spine not head. Understand?’
It took several more before the boy began to grasp the complexities of striking through the target instead of hitting at it. The angle of strike had to be right too. Too low and the head wouldn’t snap over. Too high and you risked cuffing the scalp. Above the ear with a firm swing and a follow through and the head snapped over to break the spine.
With a furrowed expression of complete concentration the boy practised and practised. The day wore on. The sun was hot and they sweated freely. The boy paid no heed and stayed relentless and sustained as he struck head after head until the first one snapped over with an obvious killing blow.
‘I did it! Gregoreeee…I did it…’
‘You did?’ Gregori was in the shade at the side of the house drinking water. He strode over and looked down at the corpse. Toeing the side of the head he could tell the neck was broken.
‘Good. This good.’
‘Are you happy with me?’ The boy asked earnestly.
‘Yes. I happy. Now do rest.’
‘Okay.’
Gregori watched as the boy applied himself and went from body to body. Some had to be struck several times before he got it right but with practise and focus the boy narrowed it down and the last two were done in succession.
It was enough for that day and they spent the evening eating, drinking water and resting before another early start this morning.
‘Wash. Drink water,’ Gregori repeats the words and watches as the boy slips off to the shade at the side of the house. The hose is turned on and the boy uses the brushes and soaps to cleanse his hands and arm thoroughly before rinsing his face off. Only then does he take the jug and carefully pour water into a cup before sitting on the ground to drink it down.
Gregori gets the next body and starts dragging it towards the mound enjoying the sensation of his leg muscles being taxed. Last night when the boy went to sleep, Gregori stayed awake and felt a growing sense of unease that bordered on panic at not knowing what he was doing. Gregori always knew what he was doing. He was collected from one place and taken to another place. He killed who he was supposed to kill and was taken to the next place. It was ordered. Structured. Disciplined. Last night he paced and fretted with his mind racing to understand emotions he had no experience of.
Now there was no order or structure. There was no mission and no pick-up and no next job to do. He could go home to Albania and that was his first instinct but meeting the boy had changed that. He had fooled himself into thinking that he would find the boy a group of survivors and hand him over. That evolved into a plan that he would stay with the boy as a man with a child was less threatening than a man alone. That plan was completely flawed as well Gregori knew. He didn’t need other survivors. If he was hungry he got food. If he was tired he would make a safe place and sleep.
Why then? Why keep the boy? His tantrums and temper were hard work. His incessant questions and never ending supply of energy and every hour felt like an added weight as he became more and more responsible for the boy. He didn’t know his name. He didn’t really know how old the boy was or what his life was like before this. He didn’t want to know. He wanted to be rid of the boy and go
on alone like he always had except he couldn’t.
With a resigned sigh he heaves the body up and stares down at the twisted gruesome limbs splayed out and the dead faces staring up into the clear blue sky.
Why was it so hot? England wasn’t a hot country. It rained and had grey skies. This was like Med heat.
The boy had no regard of death. He understood it, Gregori was sure of that much as he had seen his own mother die. He thought back to a few minutes ago and the sight of the child using the arm to beat the dead body. It wasn’t that it was disrespectful. Gregori had respect, his job was a profession and one that he took great pride in but the boy had a complete lack of regard that the thing being beaten was once a person. They were things that the boy viewed as objects. He didn’t fear them either. There was something else there too but it was too fleeting a thought or instinct for Gregori to grasp.
He looks round at the surrounding land. Setting fire to these bodies will create smoke that will be seen for miles. Gregori had already scouted the area and knew they were isolated but with these clear skies the plume would still show for a great distance but they had to be burnt or otherwise they will soon be overrun with rats and vermin.
The last body is dragged and stacked and while the boy rests in the shade, so the Albanian unscrews the cap off the fuel can and starts splashing the pungent liquid over the bodies.
Once emptied he walks back to the van and puts the fuel can inside the back then closes the sliding door. He crosses to the side of the house and uses the hose and soap to thoroughly clean his arms, hands, torso and head. He drinks water and watches the boy staring intently at a line of ants marching past his small feet.
‘Come, we go,’ he downs the last of the water and heads to the van as the boy springs to his feet and runs after him.
‘Come,’ the boy mocks with a deep voice, ‘we go…come we go…are we going to the park?’ He asks with a sudden hopeful tone.
‘No,’ Gregori says instantly then thinks for a minute, ‘maybe…if we see park…maybe…’
‘Yay!’ The boy clambers into the passenger seat and slams the door closed, ‘we’re going to the park…do you like the park, Gregoreee?’
‘No. I hate the park.’
‘Do you like the slide?’
‘I hate the slide. What is slide?’
The boy laughs as Gregoi starts the engine and swings the van round. With the window wound down he lights a match while holding the wheel steady with his knees.
‘Don’t you know what the slide is?’
‘No,’ Gregori holds his hands outside the window and stuffs the ignited match back in the box that flares bright with a small plume of sulphuric smoke. As they draw level to the mound he flicks his wrist and sends the flaming box up and onto the top. The van pulls away and with a dull whump the mound ignites as the petrol soaked bodies burst into flame.
‘What is slide?’
Three
Day Seventeen.
A day wasted. I spent yesterday scribing notes and making observations within my notebooks. I told myself it was important and everything had to be recorded. In truth, and despite the inner turmoil of self-reflection and observing a negative character flaw I will admit freely that I was too fearful to go back out.
There. I said it. I am terrified beyond words. It has been only a few days since I left the safety of my hideaway and nothing is really that far beyond what I expected. But predicting a thing is not the same as experiencing a thing. I am a scientist not a soldier and I now long for the safety of my hideaway. Jess and I could go back and resume our simple existence. The chickens will still be there and I can grow crops. I will be like Robinson Crusoe. Carving out an existence in a fertile land of plenty. The infected will be the same as the cannibals Crusoe faced and with the precautions I took it is highly unlikely they will find my place.
But I cannot go back. To go back is to undo everything I have planned and prepared for. It is twelve months and more of work and dedication wasted by a few days of fear.
I knew the infected would mutate. I knew that. I had seen it and we had worked out the rate of spread of the infection and the likely percentages of those who would suffer the mutations but still, they are utterly bloody frightening.
The evolution is completely different to what we predicted too, but then we always knew the predictions were mostly guess work as we had no previous event to measure it by.
It feels futile and there is something else inside me. The futility grows from the knowledge that finding any of those on my list will be met with peril and disaster. The chances of finding just one immune survivor are very slim.
The other thing that I feel started as a reaction, a throw-away thought that has since seeded within my mind and now grows roots through my beliefs. It is the contrast between the world and the people within it.
Right now I am sitting on an old chair dragged out from the barn used as a day room at these stables we have used to hide in. The sun is gloriously warm and the morning is breath-taking in her beauty. I saw the sunrise this morning. I saw it. I watched mesmerised as the rays penetrated the blackness of night and I heard the world around me awake. Birds singing, chirruping, bleating and calling out. Rabbits that run within the fields nearby eating grass. Butterflies floating wondrously past my head. Bees hovering and working from flower to flower. I can see these things right now. This world is alive and functioning in almost perfect harmony. We are the only negative thing within it. Do we even deserve the chance to survive? Since mankind has walked the earth we have killed and slaughtered. We have made species extinct for food and pleasure. We have raped, murdered, stolen, damaged and ruined everything we have touched.
Within arm’s reach is my assault rifle. It is loaded and ready to fire. I have a pistol on my belt and other weapons within my baggage. Tools designed for the purpose of killing but without mankind they are useless and redundant.
If I die right now… that is to say if I shoot myself dead the initial retort of the weapon would silence those animals within hearing. Startled they would run and flee but they would return and the cycle of their lives would continue. IF…if no person were to ever come here again that cycle of life could continue for evermore. The stables would eventually fall apart and the land would become forest once again. Life would not only survive but it would thrive.
This feeling of nihilism grips me hard. It makes me not want to go back out there. The last few survivors will fight and eventually die out. The infected will cease to be and…
I have to stop this train of thought that gathers speed within my heart. I WILL CONTINUE. I MUST.
I must focus and bring my mind to the here and now. Not a few miles away is the town I entered with the massed infected. Hundreds of them in one place. What for? For what reason do they gather and remain? I am between a dozen to twenty miles away by my reckoning and able to flee a greater distance should the need arise.
For what purpose do they gather?
Do I continue my quest to find those that should be immune or do I try and find out the reason for the gathering, and in so doing, perhaps divert a greater catastrophe?
My mission must come first for only by finding the immune can one hope to bring a final solution.
Onwards I must go then. With great fear in my bones I must remain true to my objective.
I am a scientist and not a soldier. I am not cut out for this.
I will continue.
I am scared.
NB
Four
‘Lani is dead.’
I say the words as we walk from the old armoury and meet with the team. They crowd in, all of them. Cookey’s eyes fill with tears that he tries to blink away but they tumble and fall to streak clean rivers through the grime on his face. Nick looks away with a sharp intake of breath and Clarence sags on the spot. Blowers stiffens with that hard look I’ve seen now so many times that tells me his emotions are threatening to take over.
‘How?’ Paula asks the question
quietly, almost whispered for the desire to know the very last few seconds.
I take a deep breath and swallow the hurt down, ‘she got into the corner…she could have got out but…but she took her own life instead…’
‘Oh my god,’ Cookey’s voice breaks as the tears flow faster down his cheeks.
‘Not like that, mate,’ I force the emotion from my own voice, ‘she had turned fully.’
‘But…’ he stammers with a look of confusion mingled in with the obvious pain on his face.
‘She cut her own stomach open and pulled the insides out…then she slit her wrists and used the blood to write a message on the wall…’
Cookey drops to a crouch as his chest heaves with the sobs that come thick and fast.
‘Get up,’ I tell him soft but firmly, ‘you need to hear this…this is what we’re dealing with now.’
He shoots up and forces his face to show a mask of anger, ‘go on.’
‘The message was one race then underneath it says he is coming.’
‘Fuck,’ Nick says.
‘That wasn’t Lani that did that. That was the infection. It did that to show us it is in control. It cut her guts open to taunt us. It sacrificed the one who knew more about us than anyone else turned or infected and it did it to prove a point. If Lani had got out she could have come back and wiped this fort from the earth. She was faster than most of us, Christ only Dave was faster than Lani in a fight but it knew. The infection knew that even as good as Lani was she wouldn’t get through us. So it did that instead. Do you understand?’ I glare from face to face, forcing them to look me in the eye. Mo Mo looks heartbroken but he holds that look as I continue. ‘This is what we are dealing with. This is the enemy we face. If one of us turns we make a vow now they will be killed instantly and without mercy or hesitation. Dave, if I turn you will kill me. Do you understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘If you turn then it means we can all turn,’ Clarence says heavily, ‘if one turns then we should all be killed.’
