Plagued

by Barnett, Nicola

  “Tell him, Albert. Make him see sense!” she said, turning to Albert.

  Albert smiled at her. “I told you, dear, he’s stubborn. But in this case, I agree with him. You can’t go out there all alone.”

  “But what about you? You’ll be alone, it’s too dangerous,” Sarah said, exasperated by the two men in front of her. The thought of Mark having to protect her again was too much for her, she didn’t think she’d be able to handle the guilt if anything happened to him and if something did, Albert would be all alone.

  “I’ll be fine here, he knows that. We’ve lasted here for over six months now. I’ve got enough food to last me a long time, especially if there’s only me eating it,” Albert smiled and stroked her hand over the kitchen table, his rough skin scratching the back of her hand.

  “I couldn’t ask that of you, Mark. You’ve already done so much for me. If you got hurt, I’d never forgive myself,” Sarah said quietly.

  “Let’s be honest here, Sarah, you need me. I’ve saved your life twice and I didn’t do all that just for you go out there and get killed,” Mark smirked, one eyebrow raised. “Anyway, there’s nothing you can say to stop me. If we make it to Solitude in one piece, we’ll come back for my father as soon as we can. I promise.”

  Sarah looked into those bright, blue eyes and saw how sincere he was. How could someone she’d never really met be so kind to her? “Okay,” she resigned. “We’ll go together and we’ll come back for you, Albert. If it’s the last thing we do, we’ll come back for you.”

  “Don’t say that, dear.” His laugh was grainy and weak. “You’ll jinx yourselves.”

  Sarah smiled at him, tears forming in her eyes. The sweet, old man in front of her filled her with love, she felt her chest swelling. He reminded her of her own father; kind and always joking around. She wished she could remember more about her life before she got infected, but it was all still a blur. Her past felt like a dream.

  “Okay, then it’s settled,” Mark said, leaving the table. He opened one of the small cabinet doors in the makeshift kitchen and pulled out a piece of rolled-up paper. He unrolled it and straightened it out over the table, it was a map.

  “Now, this is the road we’ll need to take if we’re going to leave this city alive.”

  ~

  It had been decided they would take the back roads out of the city which was, more than likely, the quietest road to take. Mark had told her that the infected had been seen in large numbers roaming the forests and farmlands but, since there weren’t many houses out there, it would be easier to slip through without meeting any of the infected or anyone else that wandered around the outskirts of Winding.

  Mark had given her a small rucksack and filled it with water bottles and any remaining food that they could carry. It turned out that Mark and Albert had quite a stash in the basement, enough for a few more weeks’ worth of food—probably double that with Mark gone.

  As Sarah sat trying to memorize the forests and houses on the map, a wooden stake dropped onto the table in front of her.

  Mark stood there, smiling at his creation. He had changed into a sleeveless, black jacket that had at least six pockets on the front over a long sleeved black shirt, and over his shoulder he held a black rucksack, seemingly heavily stocked.

  “Are there vampires out there as well?” Sarah snorted, looking at her new weapon on the table with amusement.

  “Very funny, it’s the best I can do, unless you prefer toothpicks?” Mark retorted.

  “No, this will be fine. I’m hoping not to run into anyone to use it.”

  Mark put a flick-knife into the side pocket of his jeans. “I think we should take a little detour to the sports shops, see if there’s anything we can use.”

  Sarah looked at the stake and sighed. “Yep. That sounds like a good plan.”

  So it was time to leave. Albert had given them the map and lectured them on the infected; do not get close to them, do not let them bite you or get any blood on you, just in case. Though for Sarah, he didn’t think that would be too much of a problem. She was hopefully immune, after all. He put some surgical spirit in the back of Sarah’s pack. “Just in case,” he smiled.

  They said their goodbyes. Sarah pleaded with the old man to come with them, a sudden wave of guilt washing over her as they made to leave but Albert held his ground.

  “I have research to do. I may be the only person who can,” he smiled warmly at her. Despite his brave face, Albert shed a tear as Mark removed the furniture blocking the basement door and unlocked it. Sarah hugged him tight and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, I will never forget it,” she said, eyes misting.

  “You are welcome dear, good luck out there. I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon,” he said and wiped the tears from his eyes with his sleeve.

  “I’ll come back for you, I promise,” Sarah said, determination on her face as she looked into the eyes of the man who saved her life.

  Mark hugged his father and kissed him on the forehead. “See you, Pops. Stay down here and don’t leave the house. If we make it through, we’ll come back and get you.”

  “Stop worrying about me,” Albert said, chuckling. “Worry about yourselves, I’ll be fine. Look after her.”

  “I will,” Mark said as they walked up the basement stairs.

  He turned around and looked at his father standing at the bottom of the stairs, noting how small and frail he looked. He wished his mother had been alive to look after him. “I love you.”

  Albert smiled sadly. “I love you too, son.”

  Mark closed the door behind them and they heard the sound of furniture dragging back against the other side of the door. Good man, Mark thought.

  Once they were upstairs, they glanced around, listening for any sounds. The house was dark and dingy; the windows and doors had been boarded up so that only a small trickle of light shone in and dust danced in the illuminated shafts.

  They stepped quietly into the kitchen. Cupboards and draws were wide open, their contents scattered all over the floors. Most of the food was gone. Flies buzzed around the empty tins and the rubbish bin that had been tipped over. The smell was so strong that Sarah held her hand over her mouth, the state of the room in front of her confirming that she had been asleep for a very long time.

  They passed through to the living room without saying a word. Mark looked at the sofa where his father, mother and he had spent many nights watching TV together. All of the furniture that had been spotlessly clean was now dusty, dark and damp. Rubbish and glass covered the floors. The TV lay broken on the floor. He sighed and tried to stop his eyes welling up with tears, keeping a stony facade to his face. That life is over now, you can cry over it later, son, his father said inside his head.

  On the walls were pictures of smiling family members; a young Albert stood next to a very beautiful, red haired woman and they smiled in the sunshine. She had the same unusual shade of hair as Mark. In the next picture was a red-haired, chubby baby sat on a sofa with a teething ring in his mouth, his blue eyes bright and curious. The rest of the photos were of the three of them in a park and with friends or family — happier times.

  As they walked towards the front door, Mark stepped in front of her.

  “Aha!” he said, and picked up a long metal object with a curved head off of the floor. “It’s a crowbar. I think it was Simon’s before …” He shook his head, clearing the thought away.

  He swung the bar through the air, looking pleased with himself. “Much better,” he said, smirking. He motioned for Sarah to stand behind him as he held the handle to the front door. He opened it slowly with the crowbar readied in his other hand.

  Bright light shot inside and hurt their eyes. They both winced as they stepped cautiously through the doorway.

  Sarah’s eyes stung from the light. This is the first time I’ve seen daylight in 6 months, she thought to herself in disbelief.

  She let out a gasp as she s
aw the devastated world for the first time —cars were piled up in the middle of the road in heaps of crumpled metal. Shards of glass sprinkled the ground, glistening in the rising sun. Sarah looked both ways down the street seeing more cars that had been crashed and then abandoned, completely blocking the stretch of road for anything larger than a motorbike. The scene reminded her of her best friend’s car collection as a child, he littered them around his mother’s burgundy carpet and pretended to smash them in to each other, imitating the sound of screeching tyres and crashing metal as he did so.

  An ice cream truck was precariously balanced on the next-door neighbours' retaining wall, looking like it could fall sideways onto the lawn at any moment. Newspapers and leaves blew across the pavement in the delicate breeze, the rustling sound unusually loud in the silence of the morning. The darkness of dawn gave the street an eerie feeling and Sarah didn’t think she’d ever seen the city without streetlights or the noise of traffic. In another life — and without the crashed cars and debris — she would have found it a peaceful scene.

  They stepped through the garden and up the path onto the street ahead, cautiously checking left and right up the roads for signs of life. There were none. The only sound was the happy chirping of a few morning birds as they flew from roof to roof, completely oblivious to the chaos around them.

  “It hasn’t spread to animals then?” she asked, curiously watching the birds fly happily around them.

  “Not that I’ve seen, no, just humans.”

  They walked in silence up the street, checking the windows of every house they passed for signs of life or anyone that could have survived. Mark blocked thoughts of his neighbours out of his head — it had taken a long time for him to get used to the fact that Mrs. Green would never be mowing her lawn again, or that the man in the corner shop down from his house would never again call him ‘Marco’ by mistake. His friend, Simon, who had died trying to protect a young girl he didn’t even know, would never stumble to his house at midnight and serenade him with his drunken rendition of The Proclaimers’ 500 Miles. Oh Simon.

  It took them half an hour to walk cautiously from Mark’s house to the centre of town, a walk that usually took five or ten minutes. Even though Mark himself had walked here many times after the outbreak took over, he still kept hope that this time he’d find someone else alive. Or the army would drive into town and sort this mess out in a matter of hours. It had never happened.

  Sarah’s eyes skimmed the tall buildings, once shops and apartments, now all skeletal remains of the busy city this used to be. In the panic and chaos, they had been ransacked —windows smashed and doors broken as people panicked and stole what they thought would help them survive. The streets were littered with electrical goods, even in their panic people had realised that none of them were useful anymore. Instead of mobile phones and video games, the sought after items would be water, food and anything they could use as a weapon. The world had taken a dramatic step backwards. A morning breeze blew rubbish across the street gently, empty cans of Cola and Dr Pepper rolled into the roads like modern day tumbleweeds.

  They nervously walked through the centre, passing the remains of empty shops and cars that had been abandoned. It really did feel like the end of the world. Sarah smirked to herself, wondering where all the graffiti sprayed walls with messages like ‘the end is nigh’ or ’repent’ were. That’s usually what happened in catastrophic Hollywood movies when the world ended. There was no crazy man on the corner with a ‘we r all going to burn in hell’ board, or escaped zoo animals walking across the road, enjoying their new territory. Of course, in Hollywood films, America was always the only country to survive because of their bravery and little England’s resident posh folk just drank tea or whisky with a stiff upper lip until they met their demise.

  None of that happened either. Apart from vehicle wreckages, smashed windows and homes left to their fate, the world looked exactly the same as it had before —minus the inhabitants.

  Sarah stopped mid-thought and looked closely through the windows of the nearest clothing store, bothered by something inside.

  “What’s wrong?” Mark whispered in front.

  “I'm just thinking,” she started, turning back to face him, “where are all the bodies?”

  “You don’t want to know,” he said coldly and started walking again.

  Sarah followed. This was the first time she had ever heard his voice so flat and without feeling. “What do you mean by that?”

  Mark slowed down so she could walk by his side. He sighed and turned to face her, looking uncomfortable with her question. “They were burned to stop the infection spreading, in the early days, anyway. They piled them up in skips and set fire to them. We could smell it in the basement.”

  Sarah shuddered and sniffed the air subconsciously, thinking she could still smell a hint of their burning flesh in the morning air. “Did it work?”

  “Who knows? With the infected killing people and then the gangs coming in and killing people as well, it was hard to tell. It doesn’t take much for us to start turning on each other.” He saw the sceptical look on Sarah’s face. “And I’m not exaggerating.”

  Sarah gasped and said, “Why would people turn on each other like that?”

  Mark’s face grew dark and he turned to face her. “Hunger makes people do strange things, especially ones that are already disturbed. They don’t take that much pushing.”

  Sarah scowled in disgust. She felt sick. “Are you trying to tell me that they ate people? Why would they stoop to that with how many supermarkets we have these days?”

  Mark shrugged. “Remember that everyone in the area will have had that same idea. We’ve all seen what you’re supposed to do in these situations from horror movies. Run and hide in the nearest supermarket, lock yourself in and wait until you’re rescued. Well, think of that but on a much larger scale and consider the fact that human beings aren’t very fond of sharing if they think they won’t eat again for a while,” he said, looking at her seriously. “It led to the remaining survivors grouping together and taking it by force.”

  “Did you....?” Sarah started to say uncomfortably but then changed her mind.

  “No. I’ve never been a fan of cannibalism — I’ve heard it rots the teeth,” Mark joked. “We’re coming up to the end of the road now, if we turn at the next junction and keep going, we should be able to reach the outskirts before the sun comes up fully. We have a better chance while it’s dark.”

  They walked on in silence until they reached the road junction. Sarah tried to imagine the chaos in the first days of the plague. She couldn’t help but think that she’d have been a lot smarter than to run to the supermarkets in a crisis. Then again, I did get bit and passed out as soon as it started. She rolled her eyes inwardly at herself. Not exactly the stuff of legends.

  Cars were piled up in the middle of the road like tin cans. Large, brown stains covered most of the asphalt in the road and over the broken glass on the vehicles’ windscreens. Sarah tried not to think too much about what it was, though she was pretty sure it wasn’t brown sauce. The thought disturbed her.

  Mark and Sarah jumped as a high-pitched scream came from somewhere in front of them. Mark grabbed her by the arm and pulled her from the road into the nearest building— a computer repair shop that was the only building with its windows still intact (well, no one really needs their laptop fixed in a crisis, do they?) They ran inside, closed the door quietly, and looked for somewhere to hide. Mark grabbed her arm and pulled her behind the counter at the far end.

  “Stay there!” he whispered and ran towards the back door. It was locked. “Dammit!” he growled and tried to force it open.

  Another scream came from outside, this time it was a shrill, like someone in pain —then what sounded like men’s laughter, it was getting closer.

  Seeing nowhere else to hide in the small store, Mark dropped behind the counter next to Sarah and put his arm around her. He motioned with his hand to his lips t
o be quiet.

  Sarah’s heart was beating so hard in her chest that she felt sure if she didn’t control it, the strangers outside would hear it. She held her breath and closed her eyes in Mark’s embrace. He smelled faintly of sweat and his body heat radiated onto her face.

  The voices were getting louder still —close enough that they could now hear parts of a conversation between multiple men. A woman’s sobbing could be heard in the background and then a woman’s scream.

  “Please stop! Please! No more!”

  The sound of footsteps outside the shop made Sarah let out a panicked cry and Mark quickly pulled her into his chest as to muffle the sound. Mark held his breath now, praying that the strangers hadn’t heard. He waited for the sound of the creaky door opening.

  “Just kill the little bitch!” a high-pitched, but male, voice shouted.

  The woman screamed and begged hysterically but stopped abruptly as a large slapping sound radiated through the air. She whimpered into silence.