by Ben Stevens
After that (thought Parker, again consulting the atlas), it was only a couple hundred more miles or so till he’d find himself in his own backyard, so to speak.
Parker kept walking and figuring for almost a week. Resting up in seafront apartments which he first ensured were entirely thing-free. He could only hope that the thing who’d once been a model had, somehow, already succeeded in forgetting this rather distressing fact. After he, Parker, had been the one to make her remember it in the first place...
Some of these apartments still had water running, which Parker used to wash and clean his teeth. In the kitchen of one apartment he found some real goodies – a box full of canned vegetables, meat and water. The Drinkable Water (such was what was written in blue lettering on a white label on the tin – definite emergency rations) was a real bonus because it hadn’t rained since that same morning Parker had spoken with the priest. And Parker was often dependant on rain to provide the drinking water he kept in his two large water bottles. Parker stuffed what cans he could into his rucksack, there alongside the water bottles, torch, boxes of ammunition, lighter, shaving foam and a packet of disposable razors and the few other items that stayed in there ‘long-term’.
(Parker had since discarded the atlas – no point in keeping such a large and bulky item when he already roughly knew the route he had to take.)
He put the remainder of his scavenged supplies into a large bag he found in the same apartment before leaving it. He’d eat and drink these supplies as he walked. But he’d long-since learned that it was rare not to find something at least to eat (that was, canned goods) in many of the apartments, houses, office blocks and such that he entered. Panic buying had been widespread but the virus had struck quickly. People had stockpiled only to then die having often not even touched their supplies. In one apartment, Parker had entered one room to find a wealth of stacked cans, several rifles propped against one wall, and the well-decayed corpse of the apartment’s owner (or so Parker presumed) who’d expired still holding a half-eaten bar of chocolate.
People who’d died like that – suddenly, quickly – had been the ones least likely to come back as things.
And Carrie had been dying so slowly...
The guilt still lay there deep in his guts but he was going back, now. A grim resolution to return to the scene of his cowardly desertion and then –
Well, it was hardly as though he’d know until he actually got there...
With such thoughts in his mind, his eyes, ears and that sixth sense always scanning his surroundings, steadily munching away on his supplies, Parker kept walking, drawing ever closer towards the outskirts of the desert.
He was walking along a wide highway littered (as normal) with the rusting remains of vehicles, several overturned, and weeds and a few stunted bushes periodically breaking through the asphalt concrete. Huge, warehouse-like department stores on either side of him – the gaudy lettering of the massive signs placed in front of them declaring that these cavernous buildings sold virtually everything at rock-bottom prices.
They’d all been broken into, Parker saw (that was hardly unusual), though he doubted whether the looters had even managed to remove even a fraction of the merchandise before they themselves had fallen victim to the virus; or the things; or the hogs or whatever.
No – most of the stuff was still in there, from cars to curtains to beds to garden sheds. On a number of floors; thousands of square feet packed to the rafters with stuff that would probably now just remain right where it was until the very end of time itself...
A dry, dusty wind blew. The hot yellow sun was ahead of Parker and it was making him have to squint. Parker didn’t like that. The painful brightness might conceal things that he very much needed to see as early as was possible.
But he could still hear. Apart from the low moan of that dusty wind there was absolutely no other sound. Right up until Parker started at the sudden crack! crack! crack! coming from a rifle or something similar, somewhere ahead and to the right of him.
Parker immediately got behind a car, peering over the bonnet, trying to see something against the dazzling yellow light of the sun.
And then there was a scream.
A scream clearly being made by a young girl.
Parker was immediately up and running, his right hand whipping out the pistol he always ensured was kept fully-loaded.
The department stores were huge and surrounded by car-parks. Signs displayed the fact that there was further parking to be had underground, back when thousands of people had flocked to such stores each and every weekend.
Parker followed the screams to one such store, and sprinted along its side. Eyes frequently cutting to the car park on his other side, where a number of vehicles were parked haphazardly, many with one or more doors open.
There was a gravelled area just before the towering, corrugated, blue-painted metallic edifice of this particular store. The young girl’s screams were getting louder, now – more frantic. The rifle or whatever it was sounded crack crack crack several more times and then fell into silence.
Out of ammo theorized Parker.
Another scream, Parker now certain that it was coming from round the back of this superstore. (That was the word he wanted, that part of his mind that was always perpetually distant and somewhat analytical realized – ‘superstore’. He’d not been able to think of it before.)
Parker sneaked a glance round the corner and saw a bunch of things clustered around the top of what appeared to be a small, descending flight of stairs with a metal guard rail.
Another scream – coming this time not from the young girl but a woman.
‘Oh God help us!’ she cried.
Parker wasn’t divine but still he realized it was down to him to do what he could. The same moment as he began sprinting round the corner, he pointed his gun, took aim and fired. One of the things stood at the top of the staircase spun almost completely round before falling to the ground, a bullet now buried in what remained of its brains.
Parker fired again, and again, drawing ever closer. Each time his bullet found its target and there was one less thing to worry about. Parker figured it was about time he reloaded but more screams made him realize there wasn’t the time for this.
Three more bullets: three more times his gun spat death at the things. But there were at least ten of the former, boil-covered humans still stood by the stairs, trying to get at whatever (whoever) was just out of sight of Parker.
As Parker reached the top of the stairs (beyond it the yawning opening to an underground car-park), spinning the gun round in his hand so that he now held it by its barrel, Parker saw that the stairs led just a short way down to a small, metallic door with a grill set in it and the notice –
Warning: Electricity. Danger of Death!
In front of it was stood a woman covered in blood who wasn’t a thing. She screamed again as one of the creatures took a bite out of her shoulder. The rifle that was out of ammo lay by her feet. Didn’t look like she’d actually managed to shoot any of the things in the head with it.
Behind her (saw Parker now) was a young girl of about seven or eight. The woman who Parker guessed was her mother was doing her very best to shield the girl with her body. The staircase was narrow, only as wide as one person. But the things were squeezing together tight, one even now reaching for the screaming girl with its claws as another again savaged the mother with its vile mouth...
Parker smashed the handle of the gun hard into the head of the thing closest to him. The thing staggered but didn’t go down. Parker smashed at it again, grunting with the effort, and this time the thing collapsed. Parker grabbed another by the collar of the filthy polo shirt it was still wearing and yanked it backwards, away from the staircase. He smashed out again and again with his gun; the things staggered, hissed and fell.
Panting with the effort – and then kicking one thing in the head as it sought to grab his leg, and again smacking the butt of his gun into its left temple, so th
at it finally lay still – Parker realized that he’d succeeded in disposing of all but the two things who were still jammed in tight at the very foot of the stairs, one biting the mother as the other sought to get at the girl.
The butt of Parker’s gun came down twice more, with a crunching sound and a small spurt of blood from one thing, and then he was dragging the two bodies to the top of the staircase and running back down to try and attend to the woman who’d collapsed, badly bleeding from a number of savage bites. The young girl was hysterical but (noted that perpetually distant part of Parker’s brain) apparently uninjured.
‘Thank you... thank you...’ gasped the woman, as Parker put his arm around her waist and helped her limp up to the top of the stairs. A couple of the things were stirring, saw Parker. Quickly, he whipped off his rucksack and got a box of bullets from inside. Opened his pistol and shoved six bullets inside the chamber of his gun.
‘What – what are you doing?’ asked the woman, fear beginning to replace the pain showing in her eyes as she observed Parker’s movements.
‘You don’t have to worry,’ said Parker simply, snapping back the chamber. ‘I’m one of the good guys. ‘Scuse me a sec.’
He aimed his gun and fired it into the heads of all those things who were still twitching. Four shots in all. Waste of ammunition, really. Better just to move from here.
‘You look as though you’ve been pretty badly hurt,’ said Parker to the woman, as the young girl came up the stairs, crying, to hold her mother’s bloody arm.
‘I feel... I feel sick,’ returned the woman, her expression ashen as she stared back at Parker.
Who thought quickly.
‘We’ll get in through the front of this store; try to get you cleaned up and such,’ he said. He then transferred his gaze to the young girl, who was continuing to cry loudly.
‘What’s your name, honey?’ he asked gently.
The woman opened her mouth to answer him, but Parker glanced at her and quickly shook his head.
‘Abigail,’ replied the girl after a few seconds, between loud sniffs.
‘This your mommy?’ asked Parker, motioning at the woman.
Abigail nodded.
‘Then you want to help your mommy, right?’
Another nod.
‘So I need you to be a good girl, and to stop crying and making lots of noise. That’s the first thing that’s going to help your mummy. Can you do that for me?’
A third nod, as Abigail surveyed this strange man with an expression of suspicion mixed with confusion. She had brown hair like her mother’s, growing down to her shoulders. Dressed simply in jeans, T-shirt and sneakers.
The mother looked at Parker with something almost like horror dawning in her eyes. She began crying.
‘I feel...’ she began, before she started coughing.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Parker.
‘Jan... my name is Jan,’ returned the woman, as she looked like collapsing.
Parker caught her.
‘My name’s John,’ he said. ‘Let’s get inside.’
In through the open, massive double-sliding doors of the front entrance. Banks of vending machines (a few tipped over by looters) on either side as the trio then entered into the gloomy, aircraft-hangar like interior of the superstore. Merchandise piled high on huge racks stretching towards the ceiling – and this was only the ground floor. A series of escalators stretching up towards the second floor, a map beside each one.
Parker reached in his rucksack and pulled out his torch.
‘C’mon, Jan,’ he entreated, supporting the woman. ‘Walk with me just a bit more.’
The bloody, bitten woman was sweating fiercely, and looked set to lapse into unconsciousness at any moment. Still, she half-walked, was half-carried by Parker over to the map that stood on a metal stand beside one escalator. Abigail followed, awed into silence despite everything by the interior of this huge superstore.
‘Okay,’ murmured Parker, as some divine stroke of luck caused him to see that right there on the first floor – along with General Furniture, Lighting and Carpets and Rugs – was the Beds and Bedding department.
Jan’s legs suddenly gave way; Parker caught her, and lifted her up to carry her, cradle-fashion, in front of him.
‘You okay, honey?’ he asked, looking back at Abigail.
Dumb question, butt-munch his consciousness immediately rebuked him.
‘We’re gonna get your mom upstairs,’ he continued quickly. ‘Get her real comfortable.’
‘Are you... helping us?’ asked Abigail quietly, as she began following Parker up the still escalators.
‘What do you think?’ asked Parker
‘...Yes.’
‘Well then, I guess I am.’
A further stroke of luck in the sprawling Beds and Bedding section. For the purposes of ambience or whatever the actual reason had been, candles had been placed in holders on the ornamental wooden tables sited around several of the larger, more expensive double-beds – which also had sheets.
So taking the lighter he always carried, Parker was able to light these candles and dispel the darkness that had only increased as he, the woman named Jan and the young girl named Abigail walked up to the first floor.
(They’d found the Beds and Bedding section relatively easily, following the large signs upon which Parker flashed his torch and so making their way through the General Furniture and Lighting departments.)
...Parker laid Jan on one double-bed and attempted to treat the wounds on her arms, shoulders and neck. But he had only water – and this hardly in plentiful supply – which he used to clean the wounds, before ripping up one sheet from another bed in order to make makeshift bandages. But the wound on her neck he could ‘bandage’ only lightly – so that she was still able to breathe – and soon the torn bandages were soaked with blood. It just didn’t seem to be clotting.
Not that Jan was realizing any of this. She had already lapsed into unconsciousness. Parker remembered when he had been badly bitten by a thing, and how quickly – in fact, more or less immediately – he’d sickened. Still, after a night of sickness he’d more-or-less recovered, proving that he was immune to the plague virus even when it was communicated to him directly via a bite...
In the candlelight Jan’s chest slowly rose and fell. Her face covered with a heavy sheen of sweat. Parker only really noticed her features for the first time now. A somewhat strong chin. High cheeks. Late twenties or early thirties, maybe.
Parker glanced at Abigail, sat on a high wooden chair with her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms wrapped around her shins, staring intently at her mother. She – Abigail – had been quiet for some time, now. Parker was grateful for that, as he did the best he could for the woman named Jan.
He put one of his water-bottles to Jan’s mouth and wet her lips. No way of making her drink. Just hope her tongue might somehow protrude and draw in some of the moisture. Jan didn’t seem to have developed either the diarrhoea or the vomiting that had afflicted Parker so chronically after he’d gotten bitten, and for that Parker was truly grateful.
...Carrie hadn’t developed any problems of what you might call a ‘gastric nature’ either, but still she’d...
Determinedly setting this thought to one side (if only temporarily), Parker turned his head to again look at the young girl.
‘What happened to your daddy, honey?’ he asked quietly. No sense in beating about the bush, he considered. Might just as well get this important question asked now.
Abigail rubbed her eyes on the tops of her knees. Parker thought that she might start crying again but she did not. She gazed at him with a curious intensity, as she replied –
‘He got sick, not long before. Then he died.’
Got sick. The fear of every survivor including himself, considered Parker as he returned Abigail’s green-eyed stare and nodded his head slowly and sympathetically.
No doctors. No nurses. Abigail’s father might have got a cancer – or he
might just have got an abscess in his jawbone from a bad tooth that had finally spread to his brain after weeks or even months of appalling pain. Or maybe he’d slipped or fallen from something, broken his leg and gangrene had set in...
Parker shook his head. Hard not to be paranoid. Get any disease or illness even remotely verging on ‘serious’ and you were pretty much fucked...
Parker was going to say I’m sorry to Abigail, but really he wasn’t and anyway – there was no point to his words.
‘Have you eaten?’ was what he asked instead, quietly.
‘Not hungry,’ she muttered, at the same shaking her head.
Parker looked back at the woman. She was moaning something in her feverish sleep. Then Parker started, and looked closer in the flickering lamplight...
There was an ugly, white-headed purple boil, just below her left ear and almost concealed by the blood-soaked bandage Parker had attempted to wrap around her bitten neck.
Jan was going to die, realized Parker.
And then possibly turn...
Outside, Parker figured it had since turned dark. The candles continuing to burn inside the Beds and Bedding department but getting ever-lower. Fortunately they’d been pretty tall to start with.
Parker quickly glanced at Abigail. She appeared to have fallen asleep still sitting there with her knees drawn up to her chest. Then Parker returned his attention to Jan, whose chest was continuing to rise and fall but only barely.
Then, Parker caught his breath as Jan suddenly opened her eyes and looked at him. They were red-flecked. And when she spoke – or rather, whispered – her breath carried that sickly-sweet smell like decay which Parker knew all too well.
