“My father has become an amazing chef. He can boil noodles like no one else,” Mark laughed. “Of course, that's all we have that hasn’t gone off or turned stale, so we have no choice really.”
“Yes,” Albert said, lifting the steaming pot from the stove, “we have plenty of dried noodles. After this nightmare, I don't think I'll ever eat them again.”
He poured some noodles into the three bowls on the table. A faint smell of chicken and some herbs rose up. Sarah's stomach rumbled in reply. She thanked him and they all picked up their forks and began eating.
Sarah ate quickly, realizing just how hungry she had been. Her senses came alive and the smell of the powdered chicken intensified her hunger with each bite. Even after just one mouthful, she felt energized, the food doing its job straight away.
After a while of eating in silence, they all finished their noodles and Albert took the dishes away. Sarah felt refreshed from the food and water and her mood improved because of it.
Mark turned back to her. “So, how much has my dad told you? About what's been happening?”
“Pretty much everything I can,” Albert said, sitting back in his seat.
“He filled in the gaps for me. I don't think I've thanked you yet for that, I would be dead without you,” Sarah said quietly.
“You don't have to thank me, I saw you there lying in the street and I couldn’t leave you. You collapsed again on the way to the hospital so I carried you to meet my dad and Simon, a friend of ours. It turns out it was a bite on your arm, you were infected. Dad wanted me to leave you in case you got up and uh…tried to eat us,” Mark said, pointing to her arm.
Sarah gasped, subconsciously holding her hand over the bite, she had forgotten all about it. Thoughts whirled around in her head so quickly she couldn't decide what to ask first. Fear panged in her chest.
Albert nodded gravely. “Yes, I did. I'm sorry for that. You have to understa—”
“It's okay.” Sarah interrupted, smiling at him. “You don't have to explain yourself. I just don't understand. Was I infected?”
Albert looked at Mark, raising his eyebrows in question. Mark returned the look and nodded.
“Yes. You were infected. This is the hard part to explain — you see, when they brought you in, I checked your body and you had the sores and fever that we’d seen in the others but you weren't awake...or trying to kill us,” Albert laughed nervously. “I tried to rouse you but you were in a deep sleep. I thought that maybe we had found you early on in the disease and maybe we could help you. So I carried you here…well Simon and Mark did.”
Sarah stared at him, her mouth agape and nodded for him to continue.
“We got back, boarded up the door and put you in the spare room. We disinfected the wound and gave you a drip since you were sweating like crazy. We were still unsure of what was going to happen, whether you were going to get up and start attacking us so we tied you down. Sorry about that,” he said apologetically.
Sarah waved her hand, dismissing it.
“Then it got worse; after a few hours you began thrashing around in the bed, shouting and swearing at us. Nothing you said made any sense though, it was just ramblings. We thought we were too late. Then as quickly as you started, you stopped again. You fell into a deep sleep — like a coma — and have stayed that way ever since. I’ll admit I was intrigued by your condition so we kept you alive on a drip. After a few months, your sores started to heal! We couldn't believe it. We kept you hydrated and cleaned your sores every day, hoping that you'd pull out of it. We didn't think that was possible but after you started healing, we started to think that you would. It was a miracle. We were spoon-feeding you at that point, it was amazing.”
“So the disease dies off eventually?” Sarah asked, frowning with confusion.
“Well, that’s the funny thing. We've never seen another person recover at all. Everyone I’ve witnessed that’s come in contact with their blood or saliva just get worse and worse until they die or turn crazy, like the ones that attacked you. Sometimes it takes minutes, sometimes hours. We didn't even consider someone could survive. Maybe you have some kind of natural immunity to it—at least enough to fight it off or get a diminished form of the disease.”
Sarah gasped. “Immunity? Is that even possible?”
“We didn't think so but obviously you are. We see it with our own eyes. Here you are now, talking and eating as normal. That's the only explanation. This also means you are very valuable,” he said, grasping her hand on the table and giving it a squeeze excitedly.
“Why?” Sarah asked, becoming increasingly confused.
“Because, my dear, if you have the anti-bodies to fight it off or an immunity to ever catching it again, maybe something in your blood can cure it or at least protect against it. You could be the link that saves a lot of lives,” Albert said, his face serious.
Sarah was gob-smacked. She had been awake for less than an hour and already found out that she had a fatal disease that had possibly decimated the entirety of England. Not only that, but that she had survived it. Everything felt like a dream. Maybe I can save people.
“So what do we do now? Isn’t there anyone left that can do something with this?” she asked.
“Now, I’m a general practitioner, usually the things I see already have names, but I was hoping to try and at least find out what exactly it is. It presents with a lot of different symptoms that could be a number of different things. The strangest though are the sores, when I saw them I instantly thought of the bubonic plague!” Albert said loudly, still in disbelief.
Sarah stared at him, giving him her full attention. Her mind was reeling.
“But despite the similarities, it is like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Albert continued. “The first step is to try and identify what it actually is —a virus, bacterial or even parasitical —and then of course, why you recovered from it. If that’s all okay with you, dear?”
“That's fine. It's the least I can do after all you've done for me. Do you think there’s anyone left who could do all that?” Sarah asked.
“I don't know, there might be, God willing. I have a small setup in the other room that I borrowed from the hospital, just a microscope kit and some extras. There’s not a lot I can do but it’s a start. I feel that us stumbling upon you is a sign. It's fate. So we have to try,” Albert said.
He walked to Sarah, smiling gently and wrapped his arm around her neck. The warm comforted Sarah and she rested her head against him as they embraced. He kissed her on the forehead, his stubble tickling her and then he left the room.
Sarah yawned as she watched him leave and Mark smirked at her.
“I’m tired again. You’d think sleeping for six months would be enough,” Sarah said, blinking away the moisture in her eyes.
“I'm not surprised. It's been one hell of a day for you. I can imagine it’s a lot to take in,” Mark smiled. “Finding out that a disease has taken over the country isn’t easy.”
A wan smile crept on Sarah’s lips —she liked his sense of humour. “Is it just you two here? What happened to your friend?”
“Simon?” Mark asked as the smile fell from his face. “He…didn’t make it. He was the only reason we managed to make it back here. We got attacked on the way back and unfortunately he got bitten.”
“I’m so sorry,” Sarah gasped, kicking herself for bringing up the subject. “So much death. It’s not fair.” She frowned, a shadow covering her face as she sat quietly.
“You are thinking about Jack?” Mark asked and Sarah looked at him wide-eyed. “Don't look so surprised, you spoke about him a lot in your sleep.”
“Yeah, I'm just wondering if he's alive, my family too. I should have been home that day with them. I wish there was some way that I could find out if they’re okay,” Sarah said, tears welling up in her eyes.
Mark held her hands from across the table, squeezing them much lighter than he had before.
“I wish there was something I could do to
help. I haven't seen a survivor in town for at least two months now and we haven’t been out of town, it’s not safe.”
“He didn't live here,” she said, wiping her tears away, “he lived in Solitude with me. It's a small village outside of town that takes about an hour to get there with a car.”
“I've heard of it. Well, he's lucky to have been there instead of here. The population is much smaller. Maybe he's okay and they’re in hiding.”
The thought hit Sarah like a brick and she bolted out of her seat. “I didn't think of that!” she said loudly and slammed her hands down on the table. “You’re right! I have to go to them!”
Seeing her turn to run for the doorway, Mark jumped out of his seat and grabbed her shoulders. “Whoa! Slow down! Didn’t you hear what I said? It’s not safe,” he said, emphasising the last sentence slowly, “Plus it’s much too far to walk.”
“Then I’ll find a car, there has to be some, we’re in the middle of a city!”
“There aren't. The roads are covered in wrecked cars and we couldn’t get out of town even if we had one,” Mark argued. “Listen to me carefully, Sarah, there are some really bad people out there. They came and took everything they could get their hands on and they stalk the main road, waiting for idiots like us to drive past. They have a safe-house somewhere out of town —they’ve got weapons, cars, food, water and they killed innocent people to get it.”
Sarah growled angrily. “I don't care! I have to know if they’re okay!”
She shook out of his grasp and walked towards the door. Mark ran in front of her and she bumped into his chest, looking up at him in frustration. The urge to push him out of the way was almost too much to bear in her anger.
“Listen to me, Sarah, you are being irrational. Those things out there are dangerous. I know you’re scared for your family right now but if you go out there, you will die.”
“If it was your family, or your girlfriend, what would you do?”
“Please, Sarah, you’ve just recovered from a serious illness. You can’t just go running out there on a whim. If you want to do this, I can’t stop you; all I ask is that you think about it for a while. Give yourself a chance to recover…please.” Mark pleaded.
Sarah saw the urgency in Mark’s eyes and sighed irritably. He was right and she knew it. She’d only been awake for an hour or so. If her family had been alive for the past six months, an extra day wasn’t going to make a damn bit of difference.
“Okay, okay,” she said, removing his hands from her shoulders gently. “I’ll wait until I feel stronger.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” Mark said, smiling apologetically.
“Me too,” she laughed sadly. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m not exactly Rambo.”
“You are worried about your family. I would be too. Now, you get back to bed, you look exhausted. If this is what you want to do, you’re going to need all the strength you can get,” he said and rubbed her upper arm soothingly.
“That’s a great idea,” she said, yawning and walked back to her room.
~
Mark England lay in bed later that night, fighting with his pillow restlessly. His father was asleep in the bed across from him, snoring loudly. Mark smiled, amazed at the amount of noise such a small man could make. It scared him just how small his father now was.
When he was a child, his father had been the toughest, smartest person in the whole world to Mark, and he always had an answer for everything. He was a role model. And it was true; his father was smart. Working at the hospital meant that Albert worked endless hours, well into the night. Mark often heard his father creeping into the house late at night after his shift had ended and pulling the left over dinner Mark’s mother had left him out of the oven.
The older Mark got, the smaller his parents seemed, until one day it finally hit him that his parents wouldn’t live forever. Though most children know this deep down, it’s not until they have their own families that the prospect of losing their parents starts to feel real and with that often startling realisation comes the knowledge that once they’re gone, you’ll never see them again.
Mark’s mother, Joanna, had died four years earlier from cancer, when Mark was twenty four years old. It hadn’t been a shock to his father or himself—she had battled the disease for years, going into remission twice before it finally became terminal.
He never remembered the times when she was ill; in fact he blocked them from his mind. He, instead, remembered days like when his parents took him on day trips to Alton Towers as a boy or the afternoons when he’d have food fights with his father while his mother was cooking. The good times.
Mark himself had never married. His job as a night guard at a local 24-hour supermarket kept him busy during the nights when his friends would be out ‘painting the town red’ — as his father used to say. He’d never been a fan of pubs or nightclubs anyway, so it wasn’t a great loss to him. He preferred to spend his days hiking with his father and their German Shepherd, Buster, or camping with his friends.
Though he was admittedly a loner — only having a small group of close friends — he did have relationships with women. He’d had four semi-serious ones that had lasted around a year each. He figured that after that time, most of them had gotten bored of his gentleness and went on to more exciting ‘bad-boy’ types. Which didn’t surprise him — women rarely knew what they wanted. The only thing they knew was when, exactly, they wanted it by.
When he’d found Sarah, lying there on the pavement as people ripped each other apart, he’d stopped dead in his tracks. He was startled by her dark, flowing hair and the gentle features of her face. His father had later told him that she was a lost cause and she probably would wake up any minute to bite their faces off, but Mark couldn’t pull himself away. Something in his chest tugged at him to help her, her vulnerability awakening something inside him that he’d never felt before; an urge to protect her. So he had.
Now she was awake and wanting to run straight back out to save her family and a man who she apparently loved. For some reason, that hurt him. Part of him had never expected her to wake up, he had never thought about what would happen if she did.
He certainly hadn’t expected her to be so stubborn and that irritated him a little. What was she going to do? Run out there and beat them to death with her bare fists?
More importantly, why did he care so much about a woman he knew nothing about? He didn’t like to feel so attached to someone and that someone’s actions could affect him so much. It ran through his mind for most of the night.
A room away from Mark, Sarah spent most of the night thinking of her family and Jack. Were they okay? Should she expect the worst? And was this crusade to end in tears — or worse? She shrugged it off, she wouldn’t let go until she knew for certain that the people she loved were gone. She fell into a troubled sleep.
Chapter 3
The next morning, Sarah awoke refreshed. Albert woke her in the early hours of daylight and served her breakfast. The three of them ate their bowls of watery noodles hastily and Sarah found her appetite growing with each meal. At the table, Mark began telling his father about Sarah’s plans to leave.
“I see,” Albert said, frowning at the table. The clear disappointment on his face made Sarah’s heart wrench, she hadn’t wanted to upset him.
“Well I can’t stop you, but it’s not safe out there, my dear. If you had a vehicle, it would only take an hour but with those criminals on the roads, you’re better off avoiding them anyway. Without a car, you’ll be travelling a long way without protection,” Albert said. He looked up at her, his facial lines becoming more prominent.
“I know. But I have to know if they’re okay. I can’t just stay here and wonder if they survived or not. Plus, if Jack is in Solitude there’s no way he’d let anything happen to them. I hope.”
Albert sighed as he fidgeted with his hands. “You are stubborn, Miss Car
lisle. I know someone else who has that trait,” he said, eyeing his son.
Mark smirked at his father. “That’s true, which is one of the main reasons why I’ve decided to go with her.”
Sarah was stunned. She stared at Mark as the words began to sink in. The seriousness in Mark’s eyes told her he wasn’t lying. He looked back at her and his mouth turned up in a small smile.
“No! I couldn’t let you do that,” she said, shaking her head.
“You don’t have a choice,” Mark said, smirking at her rebelliously. He folded his arms over his chest like a stubborn child that had just won an argument.
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