by Luke Duffy
Bull had compared it to a soap-opera. With very little in the way of entertainment, the team of mercenaries from Iraq and their adventures had it all. Drama, action, excitement, and tension. It even had the love interest and intimacy between Marcus and his wife, Jennifer.
“Do you think they made it?” Marty asked with interest.
“I doubt it,” Stan shrugged as he emptied his glass.
“That’s shit,” Bull grumbled, “I was rooting for those boys.”
The next morning, while Taff attempted to scrub the permanent marker-pen drawing of a penis from his forehead that Bull had settled upon as payback for the sucker-punch, Stan headed off to meet with Gerry.
7
“There, that should do it,” Tina said with satisfaction as she stepped back away from the door and rubbed her hands together.
“Do you think it’ll be strong enough?” Christopher asked with scepticism as he eyed the barricade that they had both spent the better part of a day building.
For hours they had both toiled, hefting large heavy desks from the offices and dragging them into the foyer where they stacked them at the main entrance to the building. With each piece of furniture that they piled up against the door, less light filtered in from outside. The reception area was steadily becoming darker.
Tina had conducted the construction of their defences like a military operation. Each time they brought in a desk or cabinet she would insist that they place it down and wait while she crept forward through the maze of obstacles and took a look through the glass. She was terrified of any of the infected that were scattered about the car park noticing them as they worked. She knew well from experience that it did not take much to attract their attention and if one of them saw her there would soon be an immense crowd of the things beating away at the door.
She nodded confidently while she stood back, placing her hands on her hips and admiring their handiwork.
“I don’t see why not, Chris. As long as we’re careful not to make too much noise and we remain conscious of any light we use during the night, they won’t know we’re in here. Hopefully, if the worst came to the worst, the barricade will hold them off long enough for us to come up with a plan if things went tits up.”
He nodded to her. He was confident in her judgement. Since she had arrived home in the early days of the infection’s spread, she had never been proven wrong in her decisions. He was more than happy for her to take the lead and sit back while she did all the thinking for both of them.
For a number of days they had spent their time making their new home safe. After clearing the warehouse, Tina had gone about the grisly task of dealing with the frozen corpses in the cold storage room. She had dragged their stiffened carcasses out through the door beside the loading bay and out into the open air.
She discovered there that she had been correct in her assumptions and the area on that side of the building was a sealed off parking lot for staff vehicles and delivery trucks. There were a number of cars dotted about the area, but she doubted that any of them were capable of starting and did not want to risk attempting to turn the engines over. At that moment, the area was clear of the infected and she wanted it to stay that way.
The entrance gate was still open but it was at an odd angle from the main parking area in front of the buildings and obscured by a row of tall bushes running along the fence line. Tina considered closing the gate but decided against it. Leaving it open would provide them with an alternate means of escape and they would be extremely unfortunate for the infected to wander into the area due to its location and lack of accessibility. At the very worst, one or two meandering bodies could stumble into the staff parking area from time to time but she could easily deal with that.
Out in the private car park they also uncovered the source of the power that had kept the cold storage units working. Solar panels were connected to a large bank of batteries that had originally been charged from the main-grid. When the power had failed, the batteries kicked in and the unusually good English summer had provided enough solar power to keep them topped up. It made sense. Stock being ruined and costing the company money due to a power cut would have been unacceptable in the old world.
Tina set about taking care of the icy cadavers. One by one, she crawled over the unfortunate people with a long screwdriver in her hand and delivered the final death to each of them. She still could not bear to look at the children and driving the long shaft of the screwdriver through their tiny heads had been heart breaking for her.
With minimal help from her brother, she loaded the bodies onto one of the handcarts and made five separate trips to and from the loading bay before all the dead were gone from the freezer. She piled them at the far side of the staff parking area and did her best to afford them a degree of dignity under the circumstances. The bags of lime that she found in the DIY section of the shelving units were cut open and poured over the remains to help with decomposition and to keep the smell down to a minimum.
Collecting the half-eaten skeletal corpses in the main part of the warehouse had been the toughest test of their resolve. For that particular task, she insisted that Christopher helped her and no excuse would be listened to. Using shovels and plastic sheeting, they scraped the gruesome remains from the floor and scooped them into large plastic waste bins before dragging them out to add to the growing funeral mound.
To complete the mass grave, she covered the heap of defrosting bodies with a large canvas sheet she had found on the back of one of the forklift trucks. She bowed her head in respect for a moment then walked away and never looked back.
The cafeteria was of no use to them. It was destroyed beyond repair and all the furniture and utensils were too badly damaged from the heat and smoke. Rather than sift through the charred ashes of the canteen, both Tina and Christopher unanimously agreed that they would settle for sealing the room off completely. They closed the door and used the strongest adhesive they could find to seal it shut. The place was a tomb and neither of them had any desire to open it up again.
With all the various entrances around the building checked and secured they began rummaging through the warehouse and collecting anything they could use. It had been a storage depot for a big supermarket chain, supplying all the outlets in the region with stock. To that end, they were able to find virtually everything they needed. Food, water, clothing, it was all there in abundance.
There was also an entire section dedicated to tools and gardening supplies. It was there that Tina swapped her crowbar for an extremely attractive hatchet. She fell in love with it the moment she picked it up. Grabbing a builder’s work belt down from the rack, she made herself a crude but extremely effective harness to carry her new weaponry. She kept her crowbar as a backup, tucked into the straps of her harness. Its length was useful for keeping the infected beyond arms’ reach and she had, to a degree, become sentimentally attached to it through months of reliability. The long shafted screwdriver that she had used to deal with the frozen corpses completed her arsenal.
In another aisle, they found camping equipment and wasted no time in grabbing what they needed. Each of them had a pack filled with a sleeping bag, gas stove, spare clothing, and food and water. Tina, much to her brother’s annoyance, made a point of taking an inventory of what they had in their gear. She wanted to ensure that they had everything they needed should they find themselves in a situation where they had to grab their packs and run. With everything they could ask for right at their fingertips, she reasoned that it would be foolish not to make sure that they planned for all eventualities.
On the upper floor they made themselves comfortable. They stocked the place with piles of food and water. They used gas camping stoves for cooking and once they had covered the windows with thick blackout curtains taken from the homecare aisle, they were able make use of the battery powered lanterns they had snatched from the warehouse. Compared to how they had survived for the previous four months, they were now living in splendour and with a degre
e of safety that neither of them had experienced since before the outbreak.
“We did okay, didn’t we,” Christopher remarked as he scooped up another spoonful of hot spam and baked beans.
Tina nodded vigorously, unable to speak due to her bulging cheeks. She reached over, picked up the bottle of beer from beside her, and washed the food down her throat with the cool liquid. She wiped her mouth and stifled a burp.
“Yup,” she replied, smacking her lips with glee and reaching for another helping of their gourmet meal. “We did pretty fucking okay, Chris.”
Both of them sat in silence for a moment and savoured the luck that had befallen them. They were lying on the floor on top of their thick sleeping bags. They had tried the couches in the offices but after having to rough it for so long neither of them could get comfortable on the soft springy cushions. Instead, they both opted for a compromise and compared to what they had grown used to, their new home was akin to a five-star hotel.
“Do you think we’ll be safe here?”
“I don’t see why not,” Tina replied thoughtfully. “As long as we’re careful and don’t attract any attention to ourselves, we should be fine.”
She paused for a moment and let out a sigh that made Christopher believe that there was something else on her mind.
“What is it?” He asked with concern.
“The boredom,” she replied simply.
“What boredom?”
“The boredom that will eventually set in once we’ve been here a while. Think about it. What will we do with ourselves, Chris? Just sit here and eat, and slowly grow old? That’s not for me I’m afraid. Within a week I’ll be climbing the walls in here.”
He huffed and shook his head in dismay. Her point of view was completely alien to him. They did not want for anything or need to go anywhere. They had it all there and he could not understand how she could ever want to step out into the open air again. Staying safe and away from the infected from then until the end of time would be easy for him.
“Don’t be daft, sis. Why would we get bored? We can just sit here and wait it out. This thing can’t last forever.”
Tina leaned back. Having had her fill, she now wanted to stretch out and allow the sugars and carbohydrates to carry her away on a lazily flowing river of bliss as her body transferred much of her energy into digestion. She was craving for a cigarette. She always did after a meal, but before the world had ended, she had given them up and saw no reason to reverse her decision and begin smoking again.
“You know this how, Chris?” She asked as she stared up at the ceiling. “How do you know it won’t last forever?”
He shrugged as he continued to eat.
“It just can’t, can it? I mean, those things out there will eventually die, won’t they? They can’t just keep walking about for all eternity.”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll never die? Maybe they will continue walking about forever and keep searching for the living? I haven’t a clue. No one has ever seen or dreamed of anything like this before. The scientists couldn’t work it out so I’m fucked if I can.”
“But you’ve got a degree, haven’t you?”
She looked over at him and then turned away with a slight shake of her head. She wanted to laugh but it would upset him and she did not want to hear his bleating at that particular moment. Especially while she was attempting to digest a large meal.
“Yes, in Business Management, not virology or any of the sciences. Having a degree in one thing doesn’t make you an expert in another, Chris.”
“Oh, right,” he murmured with embarrassment. He looked back up at her with a puzzled expression. “So why did you join the army? You could’ve made lots of money working in an office somewhere and telling everyone what to do.”
“I didn’t join for the money. No one joins the army for the shitty money they pay. I did the degree and when I hit twenty I realised that I was fooling no one, especially myself. I’m not cut out to be in an office. There are other careers I could’ve chosen I suppose but I really wanted to see what life in the army was like.”
“What was it like then?”
He had always been curious about the life of a soldier and on many occasions, he had fantasized about one day having the ability and drive to become one. He read the books, watched the movies, and played the games, but he had never taken the step towards changing his life for the better.
“It was great,” she nodded as she stared into thin air and seemed to focus on something from her past. “Nine years of travelling the world, going on operations, and doing things that the average person could only dream about. I had money in my pocket, a roof over my head, and needed to worry about nothing. I was fit, healthy, and had everything I needed. Then there was the social life. Jesus, we had some great times. I had the best bunch of friends on the planet, Chris. A tight-knit group of lunatics that wanted nothing more than to enjoy themselves and live life to the full.” She paused for a moment then smiled mischievously. “Plus, I had as much cock as I could handle.”
After her last statement, she looked across at him with a glint in her eye. His face was glowing red with embarrassment and she was sure that she could see the steam rising from his flushed skin. She burst into laughter.
“Seriously though, I loved it. I never regretted my decision to join up.”
Christopher felt extremely awkward. He had no idea on how to continue the conversation. After the announcement his sister had made with regards to her other activities, he instantly got a vision of her having sex. The thought revolted him and made him squirm internally. He wanted to shake it from his mind but it stubbornly and vividly clung to the forefront of his imagination and refused to be dislodged.
“Did you ever kill anyone?” He blurted finally.
She rolled her eyes. That same question was the one that all soldiers dreaded from naïve and tactless civilians.
“Not all soldiers end up killing people, Chris. In fact, ninety percent of them never fire their weapons in anger. The infantry do all that stuff. I would’ve loved to have been in an infantry regiment but the army don’t allow chicks to serve in frontline units. I was Royal Logistics, so to answer your question, no; I never got to kill anyone.”
She fell silent for a moment.
“Not until all this shit started that is,” she said with a heavy tone of sorrow.
Christopher made to ask another question but she quickly cut in and changed the subject before he could probe into her secrets.
“Anyway, you should finish eating then try to get some sleep because you have a busy day tomorrow.”
He looked up with surprise and intrigue.
“Really? Busy doing what?”
She let out a laugh and rolled over to face him.
“You really didn’t think we were just going to sit here and get fat, did you?” She paused and watched his reaction. The expression on his face was quickly turning from confusion to dread. “As of tomorrow, we start your training.”
“What training?”
“Your end of the world training,” she smiled. “For months I have been saving your arse and pulling you from one disaster to the next but from now on, you’re going to learn how to look after yourself, and me if you have to. There’s two of us in this mess and we’ll begin by pounding you into some kind of shape that resembles a twenty-seven year old man instead of a useless blob. No matter how long it takes, Chris, you will learn to survive in this world. I can’t keep wiping your arse for you.”
“You really do make me feel like shit at times, Tina,” he said quietly as he stared down into his lap.
Her eyes narrowed as she watched him in the glow of the lamp. She could see that he was about to tumble into the same deep, self-defeating hole that he was so fond of and always used as an excuse to do nothing with his life.
“Oh really? Has all this come as a shock to you? When you look in the mirror, who do you see? Gerard-fucking-Butler dressed as a Spartan?” She huffed as she turned on
to her back again and folded her hands across her chest. “You seriously need to grow up. You’re fat, unfit, and incapable of holding your own in a fight against anything living or dead. That’s the truth of it, Christopher, and you’d better face up to it. I’m not going to mince my words and smear it in honey for you to avoid stepping on your sensitivities. You’ve been wrapped up in cotton-wool your whole life and it’s time for that to change.”
She adjusted her position on the floor and closed her eyes for a moment. Growing up, she had never been the sort to hold off on speaking her mind but as she matured and joined the professional world where anything she said could have consequences, she had learned to control her tongue to a degree. Now was not the time for her to tiptoe with her words and her brother needed the truth spelling out for him.
“As of tomorrow, we begin rectifying all that. You’re on a diet from now on and we’ll be doing plenty of physical training, brother. You’ll be sick of the sight of those stairs once you’ve been up and down them a few thousand times.”
Christopher remained silent and staring down at his feet. He snorted back the tears and mucus that was threatening to flow from his eyes and nose.
“Go to sleep, Chris. It’s late.”
He stood up and walked across to the far side of the office and towards the bathroom. He paused at the door and looked back at the red and blue mound of his sister who was now wrapped up within her sleeping bag.
Why is she so cruel to me? He wondered as his vision blurred with tears. I can’t help being fat. She knows it’s not my fault. It’s a disease.
Christopher seated himself down on top of the toilet inside the branch manager’s personal bathroom. It was a spacious room with a shower cubicle fitted into the far wall and a large sink facing the lavatory. The floor and walls were made from marble, or a material that was made to resemble marble, and the fittings and fixtures looked grand enough to have been taken from an expensive hotel room.
