by Perrin Briar
“They left us,” Swatter said, turning his head to the side and spitting on the floor.
“They left you?” Hugo said. “Why?”
“I mean, as soon as they learned of what was happening in the world, they took off and left us here,” Swatter said. “They had their own friends and family to take care of. I don’t blame them. If I had a family, I would have done the same thing.”
“Except you do have a family,” Hugo said.
He turned and offered a half-glance at the little figures busy about the space.
“Now I do,” Swatter said. “It’s funny. They never really liked me before. I suppose they don’t really like me now either, but I was the one they turned to when all the adults left. I didn’t want to take control. I never wanted this responsibility. I didn’t need the hassle. But then, I suppose, when I bullied the other kids, that was really what I was looking for in a funny way. Power. I didn’t pick up the mantel until I saw how badly they would have done without me. The zees were going to get inside, and there was no way this lot were going to stop them. And if they failed to stop them, I wasn’t about to stop the zees all by myself, was I?”
“So, you stepped up,” Hugo said.
“Yes, I stepped up,” Swatter said. “For better or worse. I don’t suppose I’ll be in charge forever. Someone will come along one day and make it sound like they’d do a better job than me. But until then, this is where we are.”
Hugo nodded. He wracked his brain for something to say, to distract Swatter from the subject he wanted to broach.
“Listen, I have something I need to talk with you about,” Swatter said. “The truth is, we can’t afford to support you and your friends anymore. You eat twice what a kid does and you do half the work.”
“I’ve been trying my best-” Hugo said.
Swatter held up a hand.
“You’ve been working like an old workhorse,” Swatter said. “It ain’t you I’m talking about. It’s the others. No matter how hard you work, you’re never going to do three people’s work.”
“You need us to leave,” Hugo said, nodding. “I understand.”
“I’m sorry about this,” Swatter said. “Really, I am. I hope there aren’t any hard feelings. We can’t keep you all, not if you’re not all going to pull your weight and help us with our jobs. The other kids have already been breathing down my neck.”
“I understand,” Hugo said, though repeating it did little to hide the sting. “It was good of you to help us in the first place.”
“You don’t all have to go, of course,” Swatter said. “You could stay. You do more than your fair share, and I’m sure the others wouldn’t mind keeping you here. You know a lot too. You could teach us a thing or two about schooling.”
Hugo made a show of wrestling with the question but in reality, he didn’t need to think. He’d done enough thinking on the subject already. With Debbie having acted the way she had, forcing Hugo and Dana to risk their lives to save hers, and then having that kindness reciprocated by revealing she actually didn’t know where Dana’s sister Max was…
It had left a gulf in Dana’s heart. The relationship between herself and Hugo had suffered as a result. Hugo couldn’t imagine she would lift a finger to help anyone, even herself.
“I’ll speak to Dana,” Hugo said.
Swatter nodded, knowing what Hugo was really saying. It was a no.
“Let me know what you decide,” Swatter said. “But I’ll need to know by the end of the day. You either stay here with us and work together, or you leave.”
Hugo couldn’t find it in his heart to leave Dana like that. She needed help in finding Max, and she wasn’t going to do it alone. Especially not in her current state. And especially not since…
Well, that’s for another day.
Hugo dusted off his knees and got to his feet.
“I’ll go speak with her now,” he said.
“You’ve tried speaking with her before,” Swatter said.
“I’ll get the final answer this time,” Hugo said.
“You’d better,” Swatter said, a stern cast to his eye.
It was their final warning. Pitch in or leave this place. Hugo felt sad. He liked these little guys. He liked helping and working alongside them. Theirs was a shared purpose. Though he had tried to do enough work for both himself and Dana, he just couldn’t do it.
He wasn’t strong enough and needed to take regular breaks. He needed more food and eat just to cope. He needed for Dana and Debbie to at least do something. And that was without all the help Swatter was giving Debbie. If he had to work for her too…
He shook his head. It was impossible. Despite the things she had done and the way she had treated Dana, it wasn’t in Hugo to hate her. He couldn’t hate Debbie, not for being afraid. For being human. It was a very human trait to want to continue to survive. He couldn’t punish her for that.
Swatter, strangely, seemed to respect Hugo. Why that was, Hugo didn’t know. In the past, Swatter was the kind of kid Hugo would have avoided at all costs, not even wanting to meet him in the corridors at school. He had known kids like him throughout his entire time at school.
The Swatters of this world were bullies. They always seemed capable of picking Hugo out from the crowd, deeming him ripe for plucking. But now that Swatter had been imbued with a sense of purpose, with identity, he had become the leader of people he always wanted to be.
He needed to bring people together, not break them apart, if they were to survive here. Despite the odds being completely against them, they were at least going to try their very best to survive here. Hugo couldn’t hold that against them. Even if it did mean casting him out.
Chapter Thirty-Three
HUGO PRESSED HIMSELF against the wall as a trio of kids wearing furry raccoon hats carried a roll of carpet on their shoulders. Hugo managed to take three whole steps before he had to dodge to one side to avoid a large vase on legs. It only appeared to be floating due to the little man carrying it.
Hugo continued down the corridor and hung a left, making sure to peek around the corner before presenting himself. He had been hit too many times by people coming in the other direction to not take enough notice.
This time, however, he didn’t meet anyone. He breathed a sigh of relief and continued down the hall. On the right were piles of beds, having been hastily thrown and stored here in preparation for the end of the world.
Hugo supposed most of the patients had left already and they couldn’t afford to waste any of this space. The alternative was too harrowing to consider…
That there really wasn’t enough space in the new world for the sick and infirm, that they had been simply cast out.
Hugo shook his head of the thought and approached a door that stood open halfway down the corridor. Peeking inside, he made out the familiar cantankerous figure of the haggard old lady who had single-handedly scuppered Dana’s rescue plans. The liar.
Debbie was fast asleep, cradled in her bed by crisp white sheets that were changed every day. It was more than the old lady deserved in Dana’s opinion. But Hugo had another perspective. She was an old lady, sick and weary. He believed greatly that a society could be judged by how it treated the weak and weary of its community.
Still, Hugo wasn’t entirely comfortable with what the old lady had done. He could understand her saying anything to get out of the hellhole she had been trapped in, but once she was out, why didn’t she tell them the truth?
Because she was unconscious.
Or was she?
It was easy for someone to pretend to be unconscious to avoid having to fight for their own survival. It was much easier to rely on a pair of young backs to carry her. But Hugo found that difficult to believe.
Could she have remained so calm when they were trapped in the cages of the evil old lady in a basement they had unfortunately come upon, or swinging from the ropes as they scaled the collapsed building? There was no way she could have pretended to be asleep while she wa
s hanging upside down out of the window, was there? Not when there were thousands of undead gathered underneath, reaching up for her.
No. Hugo could not believe that. She may have had a constitution of pure iron, but everyone had their limits. Still, he hated the fact he even considered she was capable of it. He immediately felt sorry for her and guilty for his lack of empathy.
Still, Debbie had lied about knowing the location of Dana’s sister Max. It had set them back, and they no longer knew where she was. The last they knew, she had been at the university, herded toward the room they had come across Debbie…
Except that might not be true either. It was difficult to have to deal with a liar. You never knew what was true, what was false.
Dana had pinned her hopes on locating Max with the information the old lady would give them. She had risked not only her life but Hugo’s too. And when she did awaken…
She had lied.
She didn’t know where Max was.
Dana had gone berserk, wild like baying buffalo. There had been no way to control her. Half a dozen kids had piled on top of her, but it still hadn’t been enough. Only Swatter had the strength to restrain her.
Dana had wanted to get at the old lady. If she had, she would have torn her limb from limb. Debbie had been deathly afraid of her, pulling the bedsheet up to cover herself.
They had thrown Dana into an empty hospital room. She had proceeded to destroy the room, turning everything over and smashing the windows. She would have jumped out, except they were so high up. That was the only way Hugo knew Dana still had some faith she would still find her sister. Otherwise, she would have jumped.
They locked the door and waited until the beating and thumping had died down. It took several hours.
Her screams had driven the undead into a frenzy. They banged on the door and approached the hospital wing from half a mile out in all directions.
After that, Dana sat on the floor in a crouched position, weary and dirty. Her clothes stunk of body odor and dashed dreams. She was beaten, and it had been herself who had unleashed the carnage.
Then, it had been up to Hugo to go into the room to speak with her. He remembered vividly how Swatter had kept the door open so he could peel Dana from Hugo if necessary.
But it hadn’t been necessary. Dana was a vegetable. No matter what Hugo asked, Dana would not answer. She had entered some kind of catatonic state, frozen. It was the shock, Hugo realized. At having lost the one chance they had of locating Max.
Dana didn’t eat that night, nor the following morning. Meanwhile, Debbie was making good progress. Miraculous, even. That was what had led to Hugo suspecting she hadn’t been as honest about her health all along.
Finally, after the worst of her internal storm had passed, Dana approached the door to her cell. She didn’t ask to come out, but Hugo could see it was her desire.
“Are you sure she’s safe?” Swatter had said.
“She’s only a harm to herself,” Hugo said.
“And the old lady,” Swatter said.
“If she was to kill the old lady, would you care?” Hugo said.
“I suppose not,” Swatter said. “The old are useless to us now.”
“Unless they have special survival knowledge,” Hugo said.
“Unlikely in Debbie’s case,” Swatter said. “And we’re unlikely to know or understand anyway. She doesn’t speak much English.”
Oh great, Hugo thought. He’d opened a whole new can of worms for himself. If the old lady was merely a drain on their resources and would prove of no further use to their survival, what was the point of keeping her alive? She was only a drain on their valuable resources.
Hugo didn’t care. He cared only about Dana. Why he cared was a bit of a mystery to him. Either it was because of everything they had been through together or the fact she was the only piece of the past he had left. He didn’t know. He needed to protect her during her most difficult time.
They had let Dana out of her cage, allowing her to walk around the hospital. She freaked the other kids out and liked nothing more than to stop and watch them. The kids often paused in their activities and headed in another direction. It was having a real impact on efficiency.
Dana now sat on a wooden chair in the corridor outside her former prison. The chair had no doubt been the resting place of thousands of people in a similar state.
Despair.
And yet, she was not alone. People were drawn to Dana in a way Hugo couldn’t fully understand. It was like there was some kind of magnet that pulled them to her. The latest victim was a boy called Poo Poo Head.
It hadn’t been the name he was born with, of course. Hugo didn’t know his real name. No one did. Such things were of little importance to kids of the orphans’ age. It was what the boy had been known as long before the world had turned to shit. He was slow-witted, “dumb,” in the words of the kids. Hugo had found him locked in another room by himself.
“Is he dangerous?” Hugo had asked Swatter.
“Depends on your definition of dangerous,” Swatter had said. “We put him in there after he was bitten.”
“Bitten?” Hugo said. “You mean he’s infected?”
“He must be,” Swatter said. “The bite was deep enough to draw blood. And look at him. He has something wrong with him.”
Poo Poo Head had stood in the middle of the room staring at a stain. He moved foot to foot, unable to keep still for a single moment.
Hugo had looked at the boy through the little window in the door and realized immediately what Swatter was talking about.
It was in the way he comported himself. It was not the natural movement of most people, but jerking and uncoordinated. He had to turn and look at objects directly before he could comprehend them, staring at them the longest time before he could even consider picking them up. Even then, he had trouble with grasping them.
“Was he always this way?” Hugo said.
“Pretty much,” Swatter said. “He was never the sharpest tool in the box. Maybe he got even slower after being bitten. It’s hard to tell. We thought that was what happened after you got bit. You slowed down more and more until finally became one of those things. Until you were no longer human.”
“That’s not how it works,” Hugo said, recalling with fear the transformation he’d seen of the fallen soldiers on the battlefields.
They had hit the ground. Their bodies shook, harder and harder, spasming until they looked like they would break their own backs. Then, they had grown very still. Dead, he supposed.
Then they began to move again, this time becoming something else. They got to their feet and seemed confused where they were, their gait limp and slow. They had become the unflinching monsters they were. They hunted and killed and maimed.
But this boy, this Poo Poo Head, had nothing like that wrong with him. He was slow, to be sure, but he showed none of the other effects of being infected with the virus.
“How long has he been in this room?” Hugo had said.
“Since the beginning,” Swatter had said. “He was bitten by Dr. Philpott and has been in here ever since. Why? Do you think he’s safe?”
“Yes,” Hugo had said. “The undead turn pretty fast. I’m no expert, but I would guess he’s okay.”
“Guess?” Swatter had said. “That really fills me with confidence.”
But he allowed Hugo to set Poo Poo Head free. Hugo suspected they were only going to kill him anyway. They did not want to waste the resources.
“You’re responsible for keeping an eye on him,” Swatter had said. “If he hurts anyone, it’s on you.”
Hugo had opened his mouth to argue, but Swatter had already turned and marched away. Hugo was the last person who ought to be trusted with any form of responsibility. And that was his own opinion.
But Hugo needn’t have worried. Poo Poo Head was harmless as a fly. In his current state, he wasn’t altogether different from Dana. Catatonic. He also liked to watch the others as they went about their cho
res. He often leant a hand, so long as the task could be performed with simple motor activity.
Then he’d come across Dana. They’d looked each other over. Poo Poo Head was far more interested in Dana than she was in him. He noticed the sadness in Dana or else recognized his own reflection. Since then, he didn’t leave her side.
Hugo ruffled Poo Poo Head’s hair. There was, as usual, no response. Hugo sat on Dana’s other side. He was silent a moment.
“Swatter said we have to leave,” Hugo said.
“Good,” Dana said, her voice a croak. “I’m going to go back to the university. There must be something there that’ll tell me where they took Max.”
“It was blasted by the firestorm,” Hugo said. “There’s not a shred of anything left there now.”
“I can’t give up on her,” Dana said, her voice haunted. “I can’t.”
“I’m not saying we give up on her,” Hugo said.
He’d thought carefully about what he would say to Dana after they broached this subject. He couldn’t make it sound like they were giving up on Dana’s sister, but at the same time, they couldn’t stay here either. Swatter had made that very clear.
“I’m saying, wouldn’t it be good for us to have somewhere to go when we do find Max?” Hugo said. “Somewhere safe.”
“I can’t leave her out there,” Dana said.
“Of course not,” Hugo said. “We’ll find Max. But anything you can find about where the soldiers took Max will be at the university tomorrow. And the next day, and the next. Don’t you think we should be looking for somewhere safe to hole-up for a while?”
“If Swatter is kicking us out, we don’t have much choice,” Dana said.
Dana hadn’t slept well in days, hadn’t eaten a meal that didn’t consist of crisps and chocolate. She needed rest and relaxation. Then she could focus on what they needed to do.
“Where do you suggest we begin?” Dana said.
“I don’t know,” Hugo said, scratching his head.
The following wasn’t going to be easy to communicate.
“But Debbie does,” Hugo said.
