Hurt
‘Abe was crying,’ I said. ‘His face was swollen. He was holding his tummy.’
‘We all heard the screams,’ said Vinnie. ‘The Tall Man beat him really badly.’
‘And one day the Tall Man is going to pay for what he did to my brother,’ said Amber. ‘I only didn’t kill him then because I thought it would be easier to escape if we kept him alive.’
‘Abe was shouting about being hurt,’ I said. ‘What did he mean?’
Amber, Ellis and Vinnie fell silent.
‘I think we all know what he meant,’ said Amber.
She sniffed.
‘Poor Abe, I wasn’t there to protect him.’
‘None of us were,’ said Vinnie, ‘but we are now.’
I sat quiet in the boat. I tried to think what had happened. I wasn’t sure. I knew people hurt kids. Mum had told me. Mum said these people always went to prison. But there were no prisons now. Some were now viros. But what about those like the Tall Man? What about them?
I thought about the Reverend. He gave himself a job to do. He did things for himself. He made his own rules.
The Tall Man was so mean. He took my friends away. He hurt Abe. I didn’t think about Mum. I would be like the Reverend now. I would make my own rules too. My head had a thought. I just spoke.
‘I’ll help you kill the Tall Man,’ I said.
Everyone looked. I thought I had said wrong.
Amber smiled.
‘You’re a true friend, Jake. A really true friend.’
Abe came back. He was out of breath.
‘We might want to find another place to rest,’ he said. ‘Someone else has had the same idea.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Vinnie.
‘What I said. It looks like a family is sleeping under the bridge. I counted five sleeping bags lined up next to each other.’
‘That sounds strange,’ said Ellis. ‘Why would anyone sleep under there? They could be attacked at any time.’
‘Did any of them wake up?’ asked Vinnie.
‘No,’ said Abe.
‘Perhaps they’re exhausted,’ I said.
‘Who knows?’ said Abe. ‘More to the point, who cares?’
‘We’ll soon find out,’ said Amber. ‘We’re coming close now.’
The bridge stood tall. It had a grassy slope next to it. Big concrete blocks made a secret shelf on the bank. It was a good hiding place. You could sleep there.
We stopped. I saw a row of black bags. There were a couple of boxes. It was very quiet. The quiet felt weird. I had one idea about the people. I thought I knew. I said my idea.
‘They’re dead,’ I said.
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Abe.
‘Careful, Abe,’ said Amber. ‘It could be a trap.’
Abe poked the bags with his paddle. Nothing happened. He waved us over. He opened each bag. I saw a man and a woman. There were three children, two girls and a boy.
I was right.
They were all dead.
Letter
Abe found a dirty white envelope. It was next to the dead man. He opened it. It was a letter. He gave it to Vinnie. Vinnie started reading.
‘Dear World,
As the cliché goes, this is the last will and testament of Dr. Butler F. Temple. For the last 25 years I have been the local GP for the village of Lower Romney. Sadly, recent events have forced me to take drastic action and should anyone ever read this letter then you should know that I have just killed my family and myself.
I have watched my wife and beautiful children suffer more in the last few days than anyone should have to endure in a hundred lifetimes. Where once my children played peacefully they are now hunted like dogs. Where once my wife radiated love from every ounce of her being, she knows only terror now.
The horror that such beautiful, innocent eyes have witnessed is too much for me to bear. The simple truth of the matter is that I can no longer protect any of them. No one can. All I can do now is make sure that they suffer no longer.
Earlier this evening I administered fatal doses to my beloved family. Once I have finished writing this I will administer the last dose to myself. I take no comfort in knowing what I have done other than to say that as I look down at them now, I can safely say that none of them are afraid, or tired, or cold, or threatened, menaced, lost, hurt, and, most importantly, infected.
At this moment in time I truly believe that I am the worst father ever to have lived for being a murderer and the best father for having saved his children from a fate worse than death.
One of Man’s biggest dreams is the dream of eternal life. As someone once asked, who wants to live forever? And the answer always used to be everyone.
Not anymore. Who wants to live forever when forever now means spreading infection by eating human flesh? Parents eating children? Children eating parents? Friends? Neighbours? Strangers?
Eternal life is not a boon now but a curse. The most dreaded curse of all. I do not want forgiveness. There is no one to ask forgiveness from. Not even God. There is no God. There is now just nothing.
Nothing. For ever more.
Yours Faithfully,
Dr. Butler F. Temple’
Vinnie stopped reading.
No one said anything. This was so horrible. I thought about Mum.
Was she alive? Was she hiding under a bridge? Was she trapped somewhere? Was she frightened? Running? Screaming?
If she were here would she want to save me? Would she kill me to stop me being scared? What about if I got bit? Would she help me then? Would she stop me turning?
Would I help her if she asked?
What if she said, ‘Kill me.’
Could I do that?
Would I be able to?
We all cried under the bridge. We cried for different things. Those things were the same as well. The world was just nasty. It was only pain and darkness. It was sad to be alive. There was unhappy everywhere.
But we did cry together. That was important. People were missing from our lives. We had lost them. We couldn’t find them. We might not find them.
But we were not alone.
We had each other. That was good.
I hoped Abe felt this way as well.
Song
The air filled with a wailing howl. It was really loud. Lots of voices all at once. Angry, screaming, shouting voices. The sound got in my head. It hurt my ears.
Viros.
Ellis put her hands over her ears. Amber looked scared. Vinnie looked around. Abe shrugged.
The screaming kept on. I listened. I hated the noise. But I could manage it. I was used to hearing it. I looked around. I was safe in the boat. The screaming was worse when you weren’t safe.
This was the sound the doctor’s family heard. His dead wife and children. Did it hurt them? I was worried. These were hard thoughts. I listened to the screaming more. It sounded like mangled emotions. Unhappy hate and terror. Fear. The sound of death still alive. It was awful.
Mr. Bishop once said the word ‘abominable’ to me. He was talking about stuff in the newspapers. I asked him what he meant.
‘Revolting, Jake,’ he said. ‘Repugnant, even.’
‘Re-pug-nant?’
‘Just plain horrible.’
These words worked now.
Revolting.
Repugnant.
Horrible.
I thought there was more to hear. There were other words too.
Pain.
Angry.
Unhappy.
Miserable.
Broken.
Ruined.
Wonky.
In my ear the viros sang a special song. Only for them and what they knew. It was deafening.
‘There must be hundreds of them,’ Vinnie said.
‘Where do you think they’re going?’ asked Ellis.
‘No idea,’ Vinnie said, ‘but we’re not that far from the Tall Man’s farm. Perhaps they’re headed there?’
&nbs
p; ‘That gives me an idea,’ said Abe.
‘No way,’ said Ellis. ‘We’re not going back there.’
‘We are,’ Abe said.
He was angry.
‘We are,’ Amber said.
She was angry.
‘We are,’ I said.
I was ready.
Abe nodded at me.
Vinnie shook his head.
‘You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?’ he said to Amber. ‘Even though it is a terrible idea.’
‘I am,’ said Amber.
‘But it isn’t right,’ said Vinnie. ‘We can’t just murder the man, that would make us as bad as him.’
‘There’s no right and wrong any more,’ said Amber. ‘There’s just Us and Them.’
She pointed at the bodies.
‘That poor man did what he thought was right, even though it would be seen by most people as being wrong. He acted out of love. He couldn’t bear what the world had become and needed to find a way to keep his loved ones safe. That’s what led them to be huddled here, dead under a dirty bridge.’
Amber looked at all of us.
‘I’m not waiting somewhere to die. None of us are. Those men won’t think twice about killing us if they find us. You know that.’
‘Could we not just go to the army base and tell them about the Tall Man?’ Ellis asked.
‘They won’t do anything,’ said Amber. ‘Why would they? The soldiers have enough on their plates without going out of their way to find new enemies to fight.’
Amber sniffed.
‘In any case, it probably suits the army to have the Tall Man out there fighting viros; it saves them having to do it.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Vinnie, ‘but I’m not happy about this. Personally, I think we’d be better off going in the opposite direction, leaving the Tall Man to fight the swarm. It makes no sense to go looking for a fight we can’t hope to win.’
‘We don’t want to win a fight,’ said Amber. ‘We just want to kill the Tall Man.’
Funny
We headed back to the Tall Man’s farm. Our plan sounded crazy but we had to do what we wanted. We had to have our own business. We were like the Reverend. It was good to make decisions.
We landed at the edge of a field. We ate Spam and jelly babies. It was a funny thing to do. I bit the head off one.
‘I’m a viro,’ I said.
‘Funny but not funny,’ Vinnie said.
He was smiling.
We left everything with the boats.
‘We’ll come back later,’ said Amber. ‘This shouldn’t take too long.’
The grass was wet. My feet got soaked. Baxter shivered and shook himself dry.
We walked right on the road. We didn’t sneak. We were together. This was our mission. The Tall Man had hurt Abe. He was mean about me. He had frightened us all. He had to pay.
Abe and Amber were talking. I heard what they said.
‘We don’t have to do this with them,’ said Abe. ‘It’s you and me, Sis. It always has been, and it always will be. The others are just the others to me.’
‘It is you and me, Abe,’ Amber, ‘but you and me is now much more than that. We need the others now as much as they need us. They saved our lives at the caravan park when we thought we could snoop around and only got ourselves into trouble.’
‘We’ve repaid that debt already, and then some.’
‘Even so, we’re not doing this on our own and that’s final.’
Ellis and Vinnie came up to me.
‘Are you ok, Jake?’ she said. ‘Are you ok with this?’
‘He hurt Abe. He made me feel bad. Little children would tell someone what he did. We are not little children. There is no one to tell. We have to do this. We have to stop him. That is all.’
‘He really upset you, didn’t he?’
‘He said I wasn’t good enough but I am. He took you all away from me.’
My face was red.
The Tall Man made me feel different. He said I wasn’t able. That wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to feel the same.
‘I’ll show him who I am.’
Vinnie put his arm around me.
‘You are a good man, Jake. We’re lucky to have you as a friend.’
‘I’m lucky,’ I said. ‘You guys are amazing.’
Ellis looked concerned.
‘Are we really going to do this?’ she asked. ‘Like really kill him?’
‘We must,’ I said. ‘We must for all of us.’
‘Couldn’t we just leave him alone and get on with what we need to do?’
I didn’t answer. Abe did instead.
‘I’m not asking any of you to do this. The two of us will get this done and we can meet you at the army base.’
‘No way!’ I said. ‘We stick together. We can’t go away from each other.’
I paused.
‘I have to help you. Otherwise I can’t ask you to help find Mum.’
Awful
We heard the battle ahead of us. Vinnie and Abe went to see. We waited in a broken post office. It was only four walls. There was no roof. I saw dirty bricks and ivy. A rusty red post box stood outside. A dead rat was near the door. It had flies sitting on it.
‘You alright, Ellis?’ I asked.
She smiled. It was nice to see. Her smile didn’t last. She frowned.
‘I suppose,’ she said. ‘I wish we weren’t doing this. It doesn’t feel right.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Amber. ‘I never thought we’d be doing things like this.’
She wrinkled her eyes.
‘I never thought that we’d be sleeping on the streets, either, but it’s amazing what you get used to.’
‘What was it like?’ asked Ellis.
‘It was terrifying,’ said Amber. ‘No one cared if we lived or died. We’d walk around until we were so exhausted that we had to sleep. Then we we’d find somewhere to hide and wait there until morning.’
‘That’s sounds awful,’ said Ellis.
‘Once we climbed up on the roof of a garage and huddled together under a blanket. A big gang of men got drunk and started throwing bottles at us. We had to run off, leaving everything behind.’
‘No way!’ Ellis said. ‘You must have been so scared.’
‘We were,’ said Amber, ‘but we soon learned to toughen up.’
‘We’re here now,’ I said. ‘We’ve got your back.’
‘Jake’s right,’ said Ellis. ‘You’re not alone anymore.’
‘Thanks, guys,’ said Amber. ‘I’m glad you’re both here with us.’
I nodded. Ellis did as well.
The boys came back. They were out of breath.
‘Well that’s some battle,’ said Vinnie. ‘An enormous swarm of viros has laid siege to the Tall Man’s farm.’
Vinnie shook his head.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it; wave after wave of those things throwing themselves at the electric fence. There were so many of them that the fence eventually short-circuited. The smell of burning flesh was unbelievable. With the fence gone the sheer weight of numbers has let the viros get inside the compound.’
‘I reckon that we could get in through the fence now and get the Tall Man while his men are busy fighting the viros,’ said Abe.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
We crept down the lane. I looked round the hedge. I saw the battle for myself. There was more viros here than I had ever seen. They were so angry as they smashed through the broken fence. The Tall Man’s men fired all their guns. It wasn’t helping much.
‘This way,’ said Abe.
He ran to the fence. We followed.
This is it, I said in my head. You can do it. Be the big man for everyone.
Abe aimed for a big hole. He ran fast. He used some bodies as a springboard. He jumped. It was amazing. Amber did the same. She looked like someone from a comic.
I was next. I ran really fast. I stepped on a dead viro’s shoulder. I flew th
rough the air. I landed with a thud and a roll.
Chaos
I stood up. Baxter was behind me. Ellis and Vinnie were last through.
‘Not too shabby,’ Vinnie said. He smiled. We all felt good with ourselves for doing the jump.
It was chaos. Everywhere. There was too much going on. I couldn’t focus. I saw piles of dead viros. Hundreds more were trying to get in. All I could see was danger. It was so loud. There was screaming and roaring. People were shouting and shooting.
There was a group of men firing at the fence. One of them had a flamethrower. He squirted fire at the viros. The flames licked them all over. They screeched as they burned. I could smell them dying. It was horrible. Their bodies popped and burst.
I stopped looking.
Ellis tugged my sleeve.
‘We’ve got to keep moving, Jake. Abe thinks he knows where the Tall Man stores his weapons.’
We went towards a small shed next to the farmhouse. I thought Ellis was with me. Baxter started barking. I turned around. Ellis was behind me. A young viro had grabbed her.
‘Ellis,’ I said. ‘Hold on, I’m coming.’
The viro had Ellis’s arm. It was pulling her. She was terrified.
‘Jake,’ Ellis screamed. ‘Help me.’
I looked for a weapon. Baxter bit the viro’s leg. Everything was too crazy. I couldn’t think.
‘Jake. Please help.’
I was surrounded by lots of dead viros. They had no weapons. I needed something to fight with.
The viro kept pulling Ellis. She struggled. Her feet slipped. I looked around. The shed. Against the wall. Something pointed. I ran over. It was a garden fork.
Ellis was on her knees. The viro leaned over her. The viro was about to bite. I rammed the fork into the viro’s back. It let go of Ellis. I grabbed her.
We got to the others. Vinnie was hitting a window with a lump of concrete.
‘You guys ok?’ said Amber.
‘I am now,’ said Ellis. ‘Jake just saved my life.’
I shrugged. It sounded really good.
‘It was nothing,’ I said.
I sounded lame.
Vinnie broke the window. Abe climbed in. The door opened. We raced inside. Abe bolted the door.
Viro [Book 2] Page 9
