We kept the stove lit as we ate our food. It was an extravagance as we could ill afford to waste the gas but none of us wanted the darkness to swallow us up, not yet. Ciaran ate his beans gingerly, having to tip them into his mouth due to our lack of cutlery, though he didn't seem to mind. Eliza was watching him intently, which made me feel slightly better about the situation. I was no longer the outsider, no longer the biggest unknown. It was a strange feeling but one that I welcomed.
“Ciaran,” said Eliza eventually, deciding to break the silence as she was finishing her last mouthful, “if we're going to be in the same company for a while, I want to know a bit about you.”
Ciaran chewed slowly, his shoulders hunched, as if he were an animal who was aware he was being stalked. His eyes peered out from behind his fringe, shadowy and small. I had put a couple of plasters over his nose but the damage was such that it was almost certainly going to heal crooked. Bruising and swelling covered his cheeks in ugly purple blotches.
“What... what do you want to know?” he asked, putting his still half full tin of beans onto the dirt next to him, before wrapping his arms around his knees.
“Everything. Anything. Well, anything except about what you did in that station... I don't want to know any details about that. I'm sure I'd end up regretting this situation more than I already do.”
“I didn't want to end up that way,” he said, his voice wavering and fragile.
“Then let's get to know you a bit better, so we can forget that's where you ended up, making such a piss poor first impression,” said Eliza, flicking something from her teeth with a thumbnail.
“All right...” said Ciaran, bowing to pressure and perhaps recognising a small window of opportunity to make himself seem more worthwhile. I hoped he would make the most of it, for his own sake. “I'd just left school. Got my results in the summer, did pretty bad...”
“No surprise there,” said Eliza, the corner of her mouth curling with barely concealed disdain. “Go on.” Ciaran seemed momentarily thrown off his stride but carried on.
“I'm in a band. We're called... I don't really want to say actually. Seems pretty pointless now. They're probably dead.”
“I want to know,” said Eliza, a little softer this time. “Tell me.”
“Bad Apes. I play bass. We did a few gigs here and there over the summer... only had five songs though. I was on a way to band practice when it happened, the thing... the outbreak. It was the first attack in town, that I knew of anyway.”
He took a long breath, as if he needed to say it all in one go or it would never get said.
“I'd stopped to get a bag of chips, when I saw some people running. I had no idea why, back then. Couldn't see a thing. One of them was Steve, my mate. He's dead now, I think, or back... one of the two. I'm sure he's gone anyway. He saw me, I'm sure. He looked directly at me as he was running. He never stopped, didn't even look back once he was past me. I was stupid, wanting to know what was happening, so I decided to look instead of getting out. If I had, maybe I'd have got to my family, left when they did. They did leave, I checked later. Packed up quick and drove away. Took the cat too.”
I heard a twig snap behind me. I spun around, my torchlight cutting through the night, though it was only a hedgehog walking slowly over the dead leaves that surrounded us. I turned back towards the fire as Ciaran rubbed his knees nervously with his palms and carried on.
“So yeah, I was walking towards it right, people knocking into me as they went past. They didn't care. They were really fucking scared, I mean, you know why now, right, but I had no idea. When I first saw them eating that woman, I thought it was some sort of act. A play, street theatre, some kind of horrible mime or shit. But the noises, Christ, you've heard it...”
He was getting carried away now, staring at the blue camp fire as if he were recounting a tale from a crystal ball.
“The gnashing, biting, and... yeah, she was still alive too, for most of it. I looked for longer than I should have, I was so fixed on it. When one of them got up and started towards me, that was when I realised I was the only idiot still there. The street was deserted man, shops closing, the works. I dived into a recycling bin, in that alleyway next to the police station. Stayed there for three days, so fucking scared. Every time I tried to get out, I'd spot a corpse shuffling around and get scared again. If I'd have run, I would have made it. They're not fast. Everyone else ran, they all went home. I bet, I bet you're wondering why town is so bloody full now... well it was greed, fuckin’ plain old greed. Oh, some of the people just left, of course. Some were smart, and they're probably alive now, natural selection I suppose. Most people though, most of them came into town in their cars, like you did...” said Ciaran, looking at me, “trying to get stuff. Not useful stuff like the medicine, though, stupid stuff like TVs, DVDs, jewellery... who the fuck needs a necklace now? Who's got time for dating? Anyway... I saw it all. I poked my head up from time to time, as the few dead guys that were in town picked them off, one by one. Some got bit and went home, dying with their new stuff. Some died in their cars, the injuries doing them in. It was chaos, carnage.”
He fell silent, blinking a few times.
“Well, eventually I got thirsty. I knew I needed to get something. I crept out of the bin and tried that fire escape door. Vince...” I could see Ciaran's face blanch a little even in the low light, “Vince must have heard me, heard me sobbing. Dead don't sob. He popped the door and grabbed me. He had already let that other guy, Jason... I don't know his real name... he'd already let him out of the cell. I think he'd been in there for assault, but they'd known each other since school. Anyway, they'd put that policewoman in that cell instead, with her kid. I suppose she'd thought the station would be the safest place for both of them...”
“That's enough...” said Eliza, standing up suddenly. “We're getting too close to thinking about that bloody place again.”
She bent down and turned off the stove, indicating that it was time to put and end to this most torturous of days.
“And that kid has a name... Juliet. Don't forget that.”
I awoke to a violent shaking motion. I awkwardly rubbed my face with the heel of my hand to clear my eyes.
“Get up, get up now, you shit,” whispered Eliza into my ear, dragging me forcibly from the car. The day was only just beginning, with grey light of pre-dawn shivering through a low mist that surrounded us, cold yet crisp and clear. The smell of ozone filled my nostrils, natural and strong. The others were all still asleep in the back of the car, the seats having been folded down to create a cramped but manageable bed area. Arthur was in the middle, acting as a buffer between Juliet and Ciaran, although the girl didn't seem to bear Ciaran as much animosity as she should have, given the circumstances. Maybe she had forgiven him but it was more likely that she just found him more tolerable than the dead.
Eliza grabbed my shoulder and arm, not seeming to care about my injury as she dragged my staggering body towards the woods. She threw me towards the fence, which I tried to jump over but my legs were still half asleep, causing me to hit my shins on the logs painfully as I tumbled over it onto the dew covered grass beyond.
“Fuck... what?” I had no idea what to say, I had no idea what was going on. I looked up at Eliza as she stood over me, while holding my arms up in some feeble defensive posture. It meant nothing to her, as she bristled with a rage that left no room for forgiveness.
“Look at what... you... did,” she said slowly, spitting the last few words out into my face as she pointed into the clearing beyond the car park. “I know it was you. I saw you coming back, wiping it from your hands. You had that look on your face... that bloody look I’d hoped I'd never see again.”
I followed her finger and froze in place when I saw the scene... because yes, that was what it was, some sort of hideous scene or tableau, crafted by someone who truly had no sense of their place in the human race.
The tent was a flattened canvas heap, with the poles being used – al
ong with thick fallen branches and sticks – to support the two bodies of Hannah and Dorothy. They stood for the most part upright, their legs tied awkwardly beneath them, as if standing to attention in some grotesque waxwork museum. Their heads were tied back against the props, to reveal throats sliced from ear to ear and bleeding thick clotted blood from their huge, gaping new smiles, still slowly rolling down the front of their now defiled clothing. Both had arms outstretched, also supported by sticks tied with guide rope, pointing towards where the road went back towards the town. I knew without checking where they were pointing... the centre of the map, my only destination, the only one I could ever truly have. This time, like the third time going under, there would be no escape. Perdita was calling.
10
The Day
I wanted to tell her that it hadn't been me, that such a thoroughly twisted, reprehensible act would never even occur to me, let alone come to fruition. I had no memory of being a part of it and as such should have been angry at the accusation and the way she had thrown me from the car but strangely this was just an internal observation. There was no anger, no kernel of self righteousness ready to explode into defending myself against the blame that was levelled against me. It was as if I knew then, before I even looked at my hands – which bore rope burns here and there, cuts, scrapes, and the unmistakable smears of blood – that I had done this deed.
She didn't give me time to explain myself but I had no way of formulating an explanation anyway. My role as protector and healer was a shattered façade, a mask I had worn over wounds and thoughts and deeds that were everything I had so despised in the murderers of the police station.
Eliza grabbed me forcibly by my hair, before driving her fist across my face. I didn’t resist, as the cold realisation of what I had done was too fresh and had sapped any resistance from my body. I fell onto the ground, before grunting and moaning instinctively as she rained kicks upon my shoulders, back and head.
She pulled me onto my back and wrapped her hands around my throat, squeezing with all the strength that her anger was fuelling. I felt my windpipe convulsing as I gasped for breath. The fire in Eliza’s eyes was the fury of the righteous and I deserved my fate. I closed my eyes, waiting for the end.
There was no end though, no release. Her hands relaxed. Her own moral compass was reasserted. It seemed she would not and could not kill me, not like this. She still spoke low and urgently, not raising her voice above a venom filled whisper.
“Get them down and back into the sheets now. You had better undo all of this before the others wake up or so help me I will find a way to kill you. I don't care how much you know about medicine or how useful you are in a fight, when you do this... something as horrific as...” she faltered, running out of steam as she looked past me at the bodies, as if the sheer callousness of the sight was sapping the strength from her.
I worked hard and fast, cutting the ropes and removing the branches, tears rolling down my cheeks as I moved the desecrated remains of the two women back into something approximating peace upon the ground. I cried for them and like a self indulgent child I also cried for myself, for the new life I had somehow sabotaged without even knowing how or why. Within ten minutes I had covered the bodies back up, wrapping them tightly. Blood began to stain the sheets around the corpses throats, a dark reminder of my deeds welling up from the deep, unable to be forgotten this time. Eliza threw the tent over the bodies to hide the evidence, before tossing a large flat stone in front of me, her face a dark mask of utter hatred.
“Dig. Get it done.”
I obeyed, my soul crushed with the enormity of this world that could twist and turn on a pin head. After the pain, grief, suffering and violence of yesterday, which was followed by bonding, food and sleep... to go back to this, this... it was somehow a thousand times worse. I was the demon once more. I was the enemy.
As the dawn began to grow lighter, the mist lifting to reveal a sky that was blue in places and crystal clear, Eliza joined me in digging, using her hands to pull away earth that I had loosened. It was becoming a fine morning, a fitting contrast to the desolation of heart I currently felt.
I was trying desperately to remember the deed, hoping that I could somehow bring forward the fact that I was coerced into committing it somehow, but as details started to bleed through the filter of my blasted consciousness, some part of me spoke up the loudest and proclaimed what I had known for so long but had tried to push aside.
(You are sick.)
As the others in the car started to stir, Eliza shot me a cold look of warning. Her face seemed to soften slightly as she tried to control her anger but I knew it was for the old man and the girl's sake, not mine. We would act the part. The funeral was to go ahead, before the reckoning. I could have run, I could have overpowered her but... I didn't want to. I was chaining myself there, within my own punishment, a deserved punishment. I would not turn away. It was the very least I could do.
The graves were finished around an hour later, completed in silence by Eliza and I as Arthur, Ciaran and Juliet cooked and ate some breakfast. Juliet even spoke a few words, whispering softly and sparsely to Arthur as they sat together. I couldn't hear what was being said but then I didn't deserve to. I was hiding in their midst, burying their loved ones after turning them into some sort of horrible marionettes. I didn't deserve to be a party to any glimmer of happiness and hope that was growing despite my actions.
The graves were shallow and they were ragged but it would be more of a burial than anyone had received since this terror had first reared its rotting head. We gently laid them side by side, face down to hide the blood, before standing back. Eliza was cradling the shotgun now, in the show of keeping a defensive eye against the dead, yet I knew that was only half true. Still, I did not run. I did not fight. I did not take any pride in my staying, it was simply a fact.
Arthur stepped forwards, his face a stony mask as he looked down upon the dead. He glanced at Eliza, his soft wrinkled brow showing confusion as he pointed towards the bodies...
“Which... which one...”
Eliza bit her lip. Sorrow coursed through me, a sorrow I had no right to feel.
“The right, she's the one on the right,” said Eliza, coming to stand by Arthur, placing a hand on his sagging shoulder. His white hair shone in the crisp morning air, as his breath frosted a little in front of him.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, before bending down slowly and picking up a handful of the dirt. He paused for a few moments before scattering it on top of the sheet. His mouth was working, saying words under his breath, though I had no idea whether the words were for a God or for Dorothy. He needed Eliza's help to stand up, before brushing the dirt from his knees in a slow, deliberate way. He seemed to have aged by ten years since I had first met him.
“Is there anything else you want to say, before...?” asked Eliza gently. Arthur shook his head, his eyes all but dead.
“I said everything I could in that station and none of it helped. None of it.”
He walked away, shuffling slowly through the dead leaves. If I didn't already know he was alive, I could almost have believed he was one of the dead, moving slowly onwards with no purpose, no hopes, no dreams, just the sickening immediacy of want.
Eliza looked towards Juliet, who was staring down at the other grave. She walked over to the girl, before crouching down next to her. Juliet's face was twitching a little, as if she were trying to work out which of the many feelings that were running through her should be displayed. Eliza ran a hand over the girl’s tufty hair and I heard her telling the girl she could take as much time as she wanted.
“... you can say something if you want, or not. Whatever you need.”
The girl didn't move for a long time. When she did, she walked forwards and picked up a clod of earth before forcefully throwing it down onto the body.
“I hate you!” she screamed, her voice sending a few birds flying from the nearby trees. Eliza moved over to her and embraced her aro
und the shoulders, whispering soothing words into her ears. Juliet lowered her voice but kept on talking, the words tumbling out of her.
“You said you'd protect me, then you died. They hurt me and you just sat there, not even looking at me. You said you'd protect me.” Her body was shaking, rigid, little fists held at her side as Eliza held on to her so tightly I thought the little girl would suffocate. They were both crying, sobs running throughout Eliza's body too. Ciaran – who until now had been standing stony faced with his hands in his pockets – started to walk forwards tentatively as if to comfort Juliet.
“Don't you dare come near her,” said Eliza, glaring at him viciously, pulling Juliet close. “Get away.”
Ciaran looked justifiably ashamed and took a couple of steps backwards again. He glanced at me. I was still stood to the side, arms sagging uselessly. I looked back in mute resignation. We couldn't do anything here except make things worse. This was the remains of humanity, a fractured, broken group, brought together and torn apart by the same unspeakable set of tragedies.
“Cover them up,” commanded Eliza, looking to Ciaran and I, as she continued to hold Juliet. As I picked up the stone to begin pulling the earth back into place, I spotted Arthur returning through the leaves, showing more life, more purpose. He reached out and placed a hand on Juliet's shoulder, showing a solidarity with her dark mix of emotions. Yes, this group was broken but it was not without the capacity to heal.
Heal the Sick, Raise the Dead Page 19
