The silence was awkward, and welcome. I just kept looking at the skillet heating up waiting for whatever was getting thrown into it. In the end, it was I who broke the silence after Bessie tossed in what looked like bread dough.
“Been waiting and waiting on flour,” she said, pulling a large jar from her backpack for me to inspect. “Carry this everywhere. Live culture yeast. Never know when the chance might arrive. Luckily there was flour stocked.”
“I reckon they’re just fattening us up,” said Greg. “Why else would they leave any food here, if they’re that smart?” He looked tired. They all did. A siege would do that to you. “Smells wonderful, though, so I won’t complain.”
“Mother had the same,” I said to Bessie. “Had a mill for corn in the cellar.”
“Cornflour. Tasty,” she said, checking a smile. “And... do you miss her?” Her awkwardness replaced by a polite question.
I shook my head, leaning over the skillet to breathe the smell.
“Nice, eh? Reminds me of my bakery. Used to bake over two hundred loaves a day, if you can believe that. Me and Pops and our little Ma and Pop shop. Only I was the Ma. And then after Pop died, Elyse came in from her studies and we carried on ‘til the shit hit the fan.”
“I had the business acumen, you see,” Elyse added.
“While I had the pretty face for the customers.”
“Not my fault I’m the ugly one.”
“Or is that me?”
“Definitely you.”
Greg stepped in. “This ain’t no holiday club.” He looked especially haggard, face covered in dirt-filled pores, sunken eyes. “We need to get outta here, in case you’ve forgotten. Now there’s no reason to stay.” He glanced my way. “We can’t stay here forever.”
“I could go, lead them away.”
“And get yourself killed again?”
“I was cornered. Won’t let that happen again.”
Greg chuckled, and said; “Look around you. Nothing but corners. Already saved your ass once.”
“You didn’t save me,” I said. “You found me.”
“I carried you half a mile, and this is the thanks it gets me. You could’ve turned on me at any point for all I knew.”
“I’m as light as a feather,” I said, trying to think of a smart-arse thing to say. Something human. “What are you trying say about my weight?”
He looked at me, perplexed. Perhaps that was a move too far. His eyes flicked to my body, and he said; “What?”
So I shrugged. “Have we thought of a plan?”
Bessie finished kneading a flatbread in her hand and then oiled it before placing it in the skillet. It was too hot, I thought, but she looked like she knew what she was doing.
“They’ve not tried anything yet,” said Greg. “Bastards are too smart. They know what a gun can do.” He had the look of someone missing something. A cigarette, perhaps. He stood to lean in the shade of the building, against the brickwork. “Now that you’re back on your feet, we could... we should... pack light and run.”
“They’ve shown they don’t like to attack us together,” I said. “So together we leave.”
He nodded and pointed to me. “First wise thing you’ve said.” He had crooked, pointed knuckles I noticed; gnarled from too many fistfights. His beard crept high up his cheek, more than Dale’s or John’s. It made up for his thinning hair.
“That plan scares the shit out of me,” said Elyse.
“Do you have any better ideas?”
She looked at Greg, then looked down.
Bessie flipped the flatbread. “They want to ambush us. How about we ambush them?”
“How?”
“I could make a big batch of flatbreads, keep us going for days. If we all stay in one room and make no sound, maybe they’ll think we left somehow. I mean, how smart are they?”
“It’s not about how smart they are,” I replied. “It’s instinct. It’s animalistic senses. If they don’t see us leaving, or smell us leaving, then we never left. Besides, they’ll still smell us here. Hear our heartbeats.”
Greg took to chewing his nails in lieu of that cigarette. “That right?”
“Even a mutate would know by scent, so these will.”
He nodded in agreement. “She’s right, Bessie. As nice it would be to have them come to us, it just ain’t going to happen.” He sighed.
Bessie, and Elyse too. “I can still make up a batch. As many as we can carry. And when they get too hard to eat, we can soak them in heated garlic water. A little salt and pepper if we can find any. You got yourself a little soup.”
“Delicious,” Greg said, enthusiastically.
“You don’t have to have any.”
“I joke, but sounds damn nicer than half the shit we’ve been eating recently.” He sat back down before the firepit and through in a couple chair legs. “What do you think, Ffi?”
It took me a second to realise he’d said my name; I was looking at the flatbread while listening to the latest double-tap in the distance, while trying to catch any changes to the scent profile around us.
“Ffi?”
“We ain’t gonna get out of here unless we... get out of here.”
“So you feel up to it? Could you run, if you needed to?” He looked at my leg. I’d noticed his little looks more this morning. Ever since the farm I’ve caught them, so I’ve grown used to them – truthfully, I couldn’t care less – except for the past couple weeks they had all but stopped. As if he had suddenly reverted orientation. Or maybe he was like me and had cyclical impulses, and his blood had waned.
But also, no. The glances I’d caught this morning weren’t met with the usual heightened hormonal edits, or the increased pulse rate or salacious swallow. He was looking but not reacting like his sex was lit.
I rolled up my trouser leg to the knee, twisting it to show him the gash. As he looked, I removed my jacket, my eyes fixed on his. There it was, a swallow; and a refusal to look at my breasts. What do I need to do? Lift my top?
“Nasty,” he said with a scrunched nose. “But you’re walking, yeah?”
I did lift my top then, to show him my belly bite.
He looked for half a second then leaned away, nodding. “Mmm, nasty number two.”
“Looking better,” said Elyse. “I helped Adeline clean the wound. That, and the cheek, both looking better.”
Was it the cheek? Was I an unappealing mate, now?
I thought it couldn’t be that – he’d ‘gone off me’ before this happened.
And why would he have gone off you?
Because he knows. It was obvious at that point – perhaps he’d been spying on me, god knows I’d made a few errors recently. Caught me with my trousers down somewhere. Wouldn’t have been difficult, considering my nightly tendencies.
I covered my belly back up and put my jacket back on, then rolled my trouser leg down. I brought my legs up and sat with my arms around them, and stared at the fire. It felt warmer on my scarred cheek.
“I can run,” I said.
Greg made a quiet scoffing sound; one of reflection. “Then we should get ready.” He picked up a rifle sitting on the ground next to him, and began inspecting it. “I used to campaign for anti-gun laws in America, and now look. Wishing we had more firearms.”
“Guns didn’t save America, either,” Elyse said.
“Not going by the reports.”
“No,” he said. “But I bet they went down with more of a fight.”
I rubbed my tongue across my scar. Sucked saliva. That bread was beginning to smell good. “We’re not down. I’ve never been down. Whole life’s been a fight.”
“Hopefully one day you’ll know longer need to fight,” Bessie said, handing me a tin plate with a steaming hot flatbread.
***
John had the rear of the building, and he watched me from the roof as I filled a plastic bag found in the reception area of the town hall, the bag emblazoned with the town name and a local landmark of some kind. It
was filling nicely; small pebbles and worm-filled dirt, brittle leaves, that kind of thing. Anything I could find. Small snails snug in their shells. Before I put the handfuls into the bag, I squeezed. Then I walked around the perimeter, first across the back of the building and then following the corrugated metal wall. I added mortar dust to the bag, and rivets that had worked loose from the wall braces. Dried out poster flakes that had been stuck inside a noticeboard and were now illegible. Bird shit from a painting beneath the end of a lamppost. It all went in.
“What are you doing?” John called down, no longer able to hold his curiosity.
“Getting ready,” I called back.
“Oh. Right. Good, ‘cause I erm... don’t wanna spend another night here.”
I went on with my business while he walked up and down on the roof above. Of everyone, John seemed the most inoffensive; most pliable; most likely to do whatever I asked. I hadn’t seen him tested though – under pressure, how would he react? There were levels of strength a person could possess, different from person to person, and different kinds too. He could be the kind of person good at shooting from a distance, with a cool finger. Terrible with a knife and the enemy in your face. Given that so often had the binoculars, I figured the former was where his skills lay. If only he had a target to shoot from up there.
They were hiding though, still. Giving us the knocking treatment and reminding us they hadn’t gone anywhere. Perhaps they were organised enough that one or two of them went off to catch game, bringing it back.
Something to be wary of, if so.
“What did you do?” I called up. “Before?”
He peered over down at me. “Not much, I was in school.”
“Bet that was something.”
“Sure beat this,” he replied.
Someone with fewer words than I. After I’d filled the bag I returned to my room and put it beside the couch I’d been sleeping on.
Dale poked his head in and said it’s time. “Get your stuff together, but pack as lightly as possible. We’ll be convening on the roof.”
I gave him a nod, already thinking about the blood in the bathroom. I didn’t really think I’d packed that much to begin with – I left behind some literature and had to cram everything else into one bag, now that the other was blown out. Once satisfied, I headed to the bathroom and locked the door behind me.
Now for the messy bit. I’d filled the plastic bag with as much earth as possible, along with everything else, and I tipped it out into the blood. I mixed it around with my hands until it was thick and gloopy. As it had already begun to split into plasma, the mixture didn’t really end up a formidable red colour as hoped, more like tar. In the mirror, I pulled back my hair and tied it into a ponytail, then I smeared a thick black line over my scar. It smelled disgusting, in a good way. It smelled of mulch and rot, and an underlying corruption (perhaps that was my blood) – a smell that felt like it had seeped into the very bricks of this town.
I grabbed handfuls and painted my face and plastered my hair. Globs ran down my neck so I helped their course. Wherever there was skin, I covered it. I’d packed away my jacket, so that included my forearms and high up beneath the hem of my arm sleeves.
My hands. I needed to be able to grip. I filled a jug of water and then washed them and dried them, and then retrieved my special gloves from my bag. Made from the skin and pelt of the lion, these gloves had finger holes, and the lion’s claws sewn beneath the middle three fingers. I’d sharpened each one before attaching, and now they were like razors. My own nails were sharp, especially on my pinky, but not so big or as sharp as these. I sliced clean through a mutate’s neck the first time I took them out with me.
I had the lion’s teeth on a rope necklace, but it might come loose in a fight. Better to keep it tucked away for now.
Other parts of the lion I had experimented with, but without success. It had become carrion for the crows in the end.
I took one final look at myself. “If you can kill a lion, you can deal with these.” With the scar hidden, I looked more like my usual self than I had done in weeks.
This is me.
White eyes glaring from a black hole.
They were waiting for me on the rooftop, sitting to the front left of the building. Their reactions were a mixed bag; Greg said “What the fuck?” as expected; Adeline gasped; Bessie gawped; Elyse bit her lip, to stop from laughing; John tried to look the other way; and Dale just stared at me, taking me all in.
“Are we ready?” I asked.
“Define ready,” said Dale.
“I’d offer you some too, but I only made enough for one.”
“Enough what?” asked Greg. “Enough shit? You reek.”
Dale put his hand up just as everyone looked about ready to add something. “I get it,” he nodded. “Okay. I get it. You won’t smell like anything they wanna eat. Fine. But you will help us escape.”
I raised my hand, showed them my adapted glove. “Oh, I am ready to fight.”
“I don’t even wanna ask,” said Greg.
“Then let’s go,” I said.
***
A ladder, braced against a neighbouring chimney, stretched across from one rooftop to the next. The length of empty space stretched to about six feet, with a forty foot drop, and we each crossed in turn on all fours. We had packed light but still sported quite sizeable packs on our backs, with as much armoury as we could carry by hand and in holsters. I was the last to cross. As I did so, the double-tap echo rang out across the town, moving about us in a clockwise direction.
So kind of them to let us know where they were.
We regrouped on the adjacent roof, one storey lower than the town hall, a pitched roof jutting out from the centre with a walkway around it. Beneath us were shops, so these third floor apartments were perhaps penthouses for the youngest; and perhaps they used to host parties here, enjoying the sun in summer.
Only the sun to remember now, if so. It watched us, peeking between clouds. Omnipresent for our entire existence, yet passive. Docile. Ancestors used to worship it as a God – and why not, it was about as effective. More so – with its warmth and light.
Double-tap once more, a circling echo.
The mixture was beginning to harden on my face and in my hair, the slightest of twitches growing more difficult. Itches impossible to scratch.
Dale opened a rooftop door and held it open while everyone descended. As it came to me, I said, “I’ll follow from above.”
“We stick together.”
“We will be. But I can keep a better lookout from up here.”
“Ffi. This is not the time.”
“There’s no point in me being invisible if I’m in the open.”
He shook his head and unholstered a revolver. “Take it. And keep in sight.”
“Look up,” I said, tucking the revolver into my trousers. “I’ll be there.”
He closed the door behind him, murmurs resounding back up to me from protesting voices. “That’s it,” Greg said. “We will not be coming back for her if something happens.” “Oh, dear,” said Adeline.
And so on and so on. I left them to their complaints and inched towards the edge of the roof, waiting for them to appear in the street below. As I waited, I noted the knocking sounds of their boots on the stairs, and the occasional distant birdcall. A little wind every now and then twisting my nostrils into fits; their corruption was everywhere. The apocalyptic omnipresence, you could say. These apex were the Gods now, or at least vying to be. And perhaps they were close to it too, if their attack on me was not an exception.
John stepped out below, followed by the rest. They spread out into the centre of the pedestrianised street, fanning out, various weaponry aimed forwards. A row of about a dozen shops lined the street before it turned back into a road that veered off to the right. Greg and John to the lead, with Dale to the rear, walking backwards. They took slow steps, with Bessie and Elyse flanking Adeline in the middle. All sweeping their firearms to an
d fro, almost mesmeric from up here.
Dale glanced up; once he’d spotted me I darted off to get a bit of a lead. The rooftops ahead were all quite similar, with one a few doors down that jumped up another storey once more. I could see ventilation jutting out of its side which would be good for climbing up; the establishment beneath it had probably been a restaurant at one time.
I raced up to it, keeping low, careful to make as little sound as possible. The ventilation was not as sturdy as it had looked, and when I touched it, there was a hollowness I didn’t like. I’d make too much noise on it. So I leapt, testing the capacity of my damaged leg. I had to haul myself up with my arms, but it wasn’t bad for a first, tentative step. A little bit more of a run up next time. A little more preparation. I bet I could jump as well as ever.
Carelessness.
Arrogance had killed me once before, I reminded myself. Take caution.
Another round of double-taps. I began to notice slight differences in timbre; some were knock club to club, others club to brick, others pipe to ground, others pipe to pipe. The theme; they all had weapons. That could end in my favour, I thought.
From the higher storey I peered down, and ahead at what was to come. The group were still tight, heading towards the intersection that turned back into a road. I scanned distant rooftops and the windows that I could see. If there was anything there, they were hiding well. If the constant vigil said anything, these apex had evolved into patient beings. It wouldn’t be surprising to bump into one as I crossed these roofs.
Take caution. It became a mantra.
Dale looked up, giving me a thumbs up sign, which I returned.
I dropped quietly to the next rooftop and crawled along the edge, watching the distance vigilantly. The wind picked up for an instant and wildflowers and countryside brushed by, a reminder of our destination. An open dormer window to my left knocked on its hanging latch.
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