The Risen ( Part 2): The Risen, Part 2

by Smith, Adam J.

  I gave him the old ‘O’ hand signal while looking down at this thing in my hand. Bigger than anything Father had.

  “It’ll kick, so be ready for that,” Dale added. He unzipped the longest of the holdalls and drew out an assault rifle of some kind. Getting a glimpse inside that bag, I wondered why they didn’t just storm the farm and demand respite, food, whatever they wanted.

  “Lot of firepower,” I noted as we descended down the meadow, following Greg’s original path. Each of us armed. Everyone but me looking like they’d handled a gun on more than one occasion.

  “Lot of killing to do,” Dale said quietly. “You fired a weapon before?”

  “On the farm. Father made me. In case I ever needed to.”

  “And did you ever need to?”

  “Not really.”

  “I’d say don’t put too much reliance on it, but somehow I don’t think I need to tell you that. Back in the day, your mutates were slower, easier to pick off. These days getting their head is about the only sure-fire way to stop them in their tracks. And that can be difficult when they’re running at speed, sometimes on four legs. I took out a whole arm once and it still kept coming.”

  “’Til I took it down,” Bessie added. “Weren’t gonna lose my Dale to no freak of nature.” Their eyes met; Bessie’s smile lasting a few seconds before something, a memory, killed it.

  “That was a rough day,” Dale said, watching the ground. “I lost my brother. Carelessness, yeah?”

  That ‘yeah’ was directed at me, but I kept silent.

  Dale sighed. With that sigh he was better able to express his loss than I ever could of mine, or could ever want to, if I had a hundred years to write the perfect words.

  “Down but not beaten,” said Elyse. “That’s what Wayne always used to say, Ffi. That’s what we remember, now.”

  At the bottom of the meadow we crept up to the concrete wall that backed off of the first building, the smell of rubbish coming from the other side; old, aged and too faint for normal noses. I touched the wall. It was rough, like my bedroom wall in the farmhouse. I supposed all walls were the same or similar and expecting anything different was the child in me. Immediately, I felt let down, and we hadn’t even entered the town yet.

  We breached the corner, now walking down the middle of one of the roads that lead into town. The building on our right had once been a home, it seemed, its windows now smashed in. Each building leading towards the barricade had been attacked in some way, with smoke damage and dark stains leading from open doorways.

  There was corruption here. The smell was faint, perhaps old, just like the rubbish. There was death within the buildings but that wasn’t it. The corruption, if it was still here, was deeper. Metal and rust and burned oil was a higher tone on the air, with the belly of four cars stretching out in front of us.

  “Let’s climb,” said Dale, pointing. “There.” Banked against the wall was a car that had been driven headlong into it, at such a speed that its front end had crumpled, making the perfect stair.

  We climbed, one by one, without anyone asking us what we were up to. It was easier with our backpacks left up the top of the meadow. I felt much lighter on my feet now, but didn’t make a show of the climb over. Considering I could leap it, I restrained myself quite well, I thought.

  Carelessness, Dale’s voiced echoed in my head. He’d meant it. He’d directed it at me. Because he didn’t want to see me die. He moved towards the right of the group as we all headed forward in a line, and I found myself veering towards his side.

  This side of the barricade, many of the buildings had retained their windows and front doors, and were a mixture of terraced houses and semi-detached with alleys leading to gardens. There wasn’t much of a front garden to speak of. The occasional gate. In the windows were an array of sun-drenched posters, the colours drained, but I bet they were once bright and colourful. I asked Dale about them.

  “How much do you know about how things went down?” he asked, still alert to his surroundings.

  “Not much.”

  “That one,” he pointed with his rifle. “The heart with NHS inside. The heart would’ve been blue to begin. You know NHS?”

  “Something to do with doctors?”

  “National Health Service. In the first week, two weeks, no-one really knew the scale of how bad things were going to get. The hospitals filled up with cases of those who were turning. They overflowed, unable to cope. Everyone had to go into lockdown, though key workers like doctors and nurses still had to work. So children started drawing hearts and rainbows and filling windows to say thank you. When people did leave the house, they had to keep their distance from each other. Wear masks. The army delivered food. Of course, you know how fast it moves, so the lockdown didn’t last long. First it was broken by people like me, who saw what was happening and wasn’t going to just sit there in the house waiting to either starve or be attacked. We went out and ransacked, looted, whatever you want to call it. We went to hardware stores, army surplus, anywhere that might have goods for barricades and weapons. After that, it was too late for anyone else. National solidarity turned into individualism in an instant.” We passed a large, painted rainbow above a doorway. “It had been nice, while it lasted.”

  “What about others? Did you help?”

  “You choose now for all the questions?”

  “We’re okay,” I said.

  “And how are you so sure?”

  “I just am.”

  “Sure.”

  We crossed a small crest and could now see further down, into the town. Terraced houses lead to the town centre, with further streets leading off left and right. All clear.

  “We helped, sure. My brother and I. We worked in construction, renting a place in Portsmouth. No idea what happened to our landlord. Hope he didn’t mind the alterations we made. I remember the night clearly. It was one of the final nights of television, and the BBC was broadcasting from Norwich because it had become too dangerous in London. They’d been restrained, up to then, under strict orders by the government not to incite panic. The message had been to stay indoors and only answer if the army was knocking. Social media sites were blocked, all we had to go on were the very earliest videos of people attacking people for no known reason. These people were angry. They were biters. There’d be blood everywhere. We shared what we knew over garden walls, whispers from whispers from whispers. Then that night on the BBC the broadcaster broke down, showed the footage he had of people dying in the streets, told us the latest official deathtoll was so high that they weren’t even counting any more. Then he told us it was every man, woman and child for himself. And this was the BBC, yeah? National fucking treasure. If they said it, it must be true.

  “We lived in a cul-de-sac, and my brother and I rounded up our neighbours and we pooled our resources and created a little barricade. We held up like that for a few months. Food and water, though. You kinda need those things. Can’t hole up forever.”

  “Is story time over?” Greg called over.

  “Cool it, Greg,” said Bessie.

  “We’re in unknown territory, unless anyone has forgotten?”

  “No-one has forgotten anything,” Dale said quietly. “You keep your end up, I’ll keep mine.”

  The houses on the left ended, replaced by an embankment that fell down to a switchback road, that cut back again towards a denser section of buildings.

  “Let’s cut across here,” said Dale.

  “Roger,” said John.

  A wind picked up, coming out of the town centre. Something sweet on it. I tried to imagine what the town might have been like as Dale described it; that sense of community suddenly shattered, and then overrun in the streets as people went out and looted and hoarded. “So this place? They did what you did in your cul-de-sac and barricaded themselves in?”

  “That was our Intel. Unfortunately our Intel can be years out of date, sometimes.”

  “If we only had more hands,” Adeline added, “we could
work our way north more quickly.”

  “Maybe if others gave more of a shit,” said Greg, “we wouldn’t be out here doing God’s work all on our own.”

  We were open space again as we headed down the embankment, making me wonder what the point of the barricade had been. There was a small cliff over by the original road, but that could easily be climbed down by anyone with the desire.

  Or anything.

  I didn’t have to wait long to see the next barricade, twice as thick and twice as high, since now we were getting nearer to the heart of the town. The sweet scent had gone, and back was the old corruption and metal and rust and oil of the crumbling vehicles. Though again, there was easy access; a delivery van was part of the facing barricade.

  “Someone’s obviously been here before us,” said John.

  “Let’s hope they left the place in good condition,” said Greg.

  “If they left at all,” said Adeline.

  Greg climbed atop the bonnet and then the roof, and peering over, called back; “More o’ the same. See what looks like a high street down the way.”

  Dale scanned the rooftops, and John joined Greg at the top, picking out distant objects with his binoculars. Once they gave the all clear, we all climbed over. The other side: more residential houses leading towards a greyer, darker street where the buildings were a storey taller. In the distant one sign said Post Office. Another sign, bleached by the sun, said Horse and Wagon. That might be a good place to stay, I thought. The village had had one pub, with a great smoky smell, and stale beer. All dark wood and green cushioning. Something about it had reminded me of a church; perhaps the benches lining the wall like pews. From what Father had said, it wasn’t far different, just another kind of God. Served the same purpose, he said. Somewhere to get together with friends.

  There were more NHS, rainbow and heart paintings in the windows we passed. Leached of colour, I felt a little as though I had gone back in time; able to walk through how it had been in the past but without interacting in any way. Any second now, a child would appear at the window to affix another painting, this time bright as a wildflower meadow. I’d wave and he’d give me a thumbs up. Then his mother would pull him sharply away. His father would appear and stand in the window, eyes glued to mine while he slowly drew down a blind.

  A local town for local people.

  “Where’s all the dead?” I asked.

  “Our Intel was good,” said Dale. “Though perhaps outdated. Most towns, you need to swim through the dead.”

  “Might’ve been a farming community,” said Adeline. “One with an already ingrained sense of community. And guns. All it took was one or two local Lords of the Manor with their hunting trophies, and you’d have enough armoury to kit a whole town. Could be what happened here. How they were able to hold out so quickly, and for so long.”

  The others chatted among themselves as we made our way slowly towards the centre. The terraces grew closer, doorsteps on pavements and long stretches without alleyways. Residential streets peeled left and right, up the hill and down. Those first streets were the first time that I’d been surrounded by more brick than nature; the hill rose in the distance but otherwise, this was it – I was in a totally new territory. A wheelie-bin stood sentry beside a red-stained door as though someone had forgotten to put it out for the bin-men. Rubbish trucks would’ve beeped down this road once upon; cars overtaking, pedestrians crossing, seagulls crapping on windshields from above.

  I breathed deeply, disappointed by the aromas. The distant yarrow was stronger than anything in the vicinity. Perhaps this was death’s true smell. An absence of.

  Then a stack of books on a windowsill caught my attention.

  Be glad it’s empty, I said to myself. You could stay here awhile. A whole town for a nest. Excitement crept up on me at the thought of rummaging through every house and pub and shop, and of setting up booby traps and early warning signals. If they wanted a new sanctuary to add to their list, than why couldn’t I be the one to set it up?

  I began to actively hope the town was as dead as it looked.

  When we hit the intersection, Dale stepped out into the middle of the road looking both ways. Funny, how there were still cars parked against the pavement. I wondered if these had been looted; I once found a cache of outdoor equipment in the back of an abandoned Range Rover, its door left open. I’d use the mini shovel sometimes. Not so much the lye, as that would have had the opposite intended effect.

  “Should we make some noise?” I asked.

  “I don’t see a doorbell,” said Greg. “Do you?”

  I fired the shotgun into the sky. The recoil smacked against my upper arm and would later bruise.

  Everyone jumped, bringing their weapons up. It took a few seconds until everyone was on the same page, after Greg called me a stupid bitch.

  “This ain’t some fucking game,” moaned Guess Who.

  “Alright, ease it,” said Adeline.

  “That’s one way to get their attention,” said Elyse, rubbing her ear. “How about a warning next time?”

  “Guess the cat’s out the bag, then,” said Dale. He crossed towards a white vehicle, a small Lupo according to the badge on its rear, and climbed atop it. Each of us listened to the last ringing of the shot, and then some more; any telltale padding of rushing feet or smashing doors and glass; shots in return, yells or screams. There was nothing.

  I knelt to my knees and put my palms to the road, leaning forward until my forehead touched the road too. John scuffled his feet. Greg asked; “What the fuck is she doing now?” The Lupo roof squeaked under Dale’s weight. Two knocks rang out, wood on wood; one branch hitting another, I thought. Too far away for the others to hear. Dale landed on the road with a thud. Bessie scratched her neck. A wind-chime chimed in a garden somewhere.

  “So, Mystic Meg? Anything?” Guess Who again. What did he have against me?

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Not so mystic, after all.” He turned to Dale. “What do you wanna do?”

  “Let’s find a base to set up. It’s a big town; there may still be people here, just not enough to man every corner. That shot could either have scared them deeper into their hole, or got them out of it. We’ll know that soon enough.”

  “Let’s find somewhere and bring our bags back,” said Adeline in agreement.

  “We can spend a few days here, if necessary. Gather our strength. Check out how fortified it is, and if it’ll make for a safe-place.”

  Bessie put an arm through Dale’s arm. “Looks to be a contender.” She nuzzled her head to his shoulder.

  “Just don’t get fucking pregnant,” said Greg.

  ***

  They chose a cafe called COSTA to bunk down in. There was a downstairs staff room, and upstairs there was a two-bedroom flat, though that was only to be used to wash and change in. There would be no sleeping upstairs, for escape plan reasons. Once we’d brought our bags back, sundown was still a couple of hours away. Dale instructed us to explore in pairs or more, but I had already left his eyesight by the time he got around to saying that.

  I spent the next hour trying doors, and when they opened, exploring whatever lay beyond. I took my bag with me, of course, and filled it with new books, and then found another bag and filled that one! I didn’t need a library, not with people’s own stash to rummage through. Finding the time to read all these would be the hard part; there was nothing else on the farm to do, so reading was my entertainment. Here, there were a thousand buildings to check, defences to be fortified, traps to be set, food to be found, water to be gleaned (at least it rained a lot). I’d already decided by then that I wouldn’t be moving on. This would do me for now.

  After an hour into my hunting I came across my first body, nothing but bones. I figured Dale’s assumption about the town coming together had been correct, and so any dead bodies were dealt with at the time, hence there were none around. Residents of Dolgellau wouldn’t have wanted that constant reminder. So I was shocked
when I stumbled on it. Even more so that I hadn’t smelled it. All the rot was long gone, so that wasn’t so surprising. Straw hair hung from a gaping jaw, teeth yellow. A welcoming grin, considering.

  It sat in an armchair, alone, television remote on one arm, ashtray on the other. Wallpaper yellow. Curtains drawn, with netting hung beyond. An unfinished puzzle on the coffee table. I got the feeling that perhaps this person had died of natural causes (as natural as you could get), sitting there watching the BBC News channel, chain-smoking, not moving, not even to eat. It was a scene that said he’d rather starve to death than live in the new world. For every Dale, there would have been someone like this guy – too old perhaps, or too tired, for one more fight.

  There were a stack of old military magazines in a rack beneath the window. As I rifled through them, I noticed the curtains growing darker, and when I peeked out, the sun had fallen behind a building. It was still out, but no longer visible in the town. That was something I would have to get used to. I chose a magazine at random and put it away, then exited through the rear kitchen door (left unlocked, unlike the front door). I spat at the wall beside the door then wiped it with one of my red flannels, marking it with a dust-free ‘F’ for future reference.

  The wind must’ve picked up while I was inside, for the air smelled sweeter, as though the yarrow had been urged by the current across the town. The back garden was quite large, with wooden panelling that had been painted a dark brown at the six-foot-tall mark. No shed, grass that had grown hardy and long, curled dock invading with its tall brown stems. Long enough to hide in. Something rustled the growth and pounced from a prone position. Catching it from the corner of my eye, I was able to roll forward, but not quick enough. It got its claws into my left calf muscle, tearing through fabric and flesh. I twisted mid-roll and came to a stop with my back against the fence, looking back. Fire crawled up my left leg, searing. I was too shocked to scream, I just kept looking from the blood splattered on the paving, to the thing gearing up for another go.