by Luke Duffy
21
"This will make you feel much better, Andy."
He stared back at her in confusion and watched as she reached for another bottle of the thick golden fluid. She unscrewed the cap and hefted the large container in her delicate and straining little hands. Holding it over the side of the bathtub, she tipped the contents into the bath, adding to the other liquid that was already beginning to rise to a reasonable depth in the tub.
Molly looked at him and saw the bewilderment in his eyes.
"It's okay," she smiled reassuringly as the bottle glugged and the last of the fluid drained. "It's just cooking oil. It won't hurt you."
Andy looked down at the wound to his abdomen. The row of staples and crude sutures that Molly had sewn to seal the tear in his flesh looked to be effectively holding him together. He ran his hand over the repair, feeling his fingertips brushing over the shining metal of the staples and across the thick knots in the rough cotton thread.
Molly had spent hours playing nurse to him as he sat silent and still, watching her work and revelling in the care and affection that she showed him.
He trusted her, and she trusted him.
Andy was allowing a member of the beautiful, fast moving kind to carry out surgery on him without wanting to end his existence. Molly, despite the fact that she had always run in fear from his sort with them wanting to tear her to pieces, seemed not to notice their differences anymore.
She accepted him completely and he was happy, truly happy, to sit and listen to the jumbled up noises that she made as she spoke to him, and completely oblivious to much of their meaning.
Now, they stood in the large bathroom of the farmhouse as Molly continued to fill the tub with the bubbling thick syrup. He could not understand what she intended it to be for, but he had concluded she was doing it for him; he was willing to follow her lead.
She tipped the final bottle of cooking oil into the bath and discarded the empty plastic container out onto the landing. Next, she reached down and lifted another object, but it looked different from the previous bottles. It was clunky and made of metal.
"This," Molly began, her voice straining as she hefted the weight, "is 'Castrol GTX'," she said reading the label slowly.
"I've seen my dad putting it in generators and our tractor engine. He said it was to help machines from breaking when their joints were dry."
She looked up at him and then nodded to his knees and he followed her indication, looking down at himself.
"You have dry joints, so it won't do you any harm, I don’t think," she reasoned.
The can of engine oil was tipped into the mixture along with anything else that she could lay her hands on. Shampoo, shower gel, toothpaste and even a bottle of mild disinfectant were thrown in, bringing the level of the bath even higher.
"Oh," Molly suddenly exclaimed excitedly, "wait here, I'll be back in a jiffy."
She ran out of the bathroom, leaving Andy standing, staring at the bath, completely bemused. A moment later, the child reappeared, barging through the door, her arms laden with more items.
"Look," she said, holding something out in front of her for him to view. He had no idea what it was.
"It's perfume," she said with a tone that sounded as though Andy should have rolled his eyes, accompanied with a 'tut' to himself for not realising.
Still, he had no idea what it was and just stared back at her, blankly.
Molly shook her head in disappointment.
She tipped the first, then the second, and continued until five bottles of her mother's expensive perfume had been added to the oily bath, absent-mindedly humming a song to herself as she worked.
Finally, she stepped back, wiping her hands on her trousers. She stopped and looked around for something, then saw what she needed in the corner, by the toilet.
"Ah-ha," she gasped with satisfaction.
She leaned over the bath and dipped the toilet brush into the mixture, and began to stir, still humming as she did so.
Andy watched and listened to her. Her movements were a delight to watch as her nimble feet danced around with such energy. Her voice and singing drifted to him, brushing delicately into his ears and wrapping his mind in a euphoria that almost sent him into a hypnotic state.
The little girl, Molly, meant everything to him now. She filled his every thought and he felt alive while he was with her. Her energy and life force seemed to radiate from her soul and infected Andy in the process through his proximity to her.
"There you go," Molly said, stepping back and clapping her hands together before wiping them on her trousers again.
"All ready for your bath?"
Andy remained standing still, staring at her and the bath alternately. He was able to deduce that the tub full of strange liquid was for him, but he did not know what she expected him to do with it.
Molly tried to encourage him to climb in, but all her hand gestures and words of instruction fell on ears that were incapable of understanding her.
She paused, placing her hands on her hips and huffing with resignation. She considered demonstrating what she wanted him to do, but she felt uncomfortable with the thought of getting undressed in front of Andy. Besides, the contents of the tub would not do her skin any good, she surmised.
Finally, a thought occurred to her and she instructed Andy to remain where he was while she went to find what she needed.
A while later, she returned with a brochure for a home furnishings store, turning to the pages containing the bathroom section and holding it up for Andy to see.
"You see," she said pointing at the pictures, "that’s what I want you to do."
Andy's eyes narrowed as he scrutinised the images on the page and he focussed on the particular picture that Molly was pointing at for him.
He looked from the picture to Molly, who nodded approvingly at him.
"See? It's a bath, and that's your bath," she said, pointing at the tub to her right.
Andy could see that they were the same thing and in the picture, he saw the head and shoulders of a young woman protruding from the piles of bubbles that surrounded her, as she smiled for the camera.
Andy's eyes widened as he realised what he needed to do. Immediately, he began to position himself to begin climbing into the bath.
"Wait," Molly ordered.
Andy paused and turned to her, unsure of what it was that he was doing wrong.
"You need to get undressed, Andy. You can't have a bath with your clothes on."
He looked at her, his brain back to not understanding what she was saying or what she wanted from him. She pointed at his clothes and attempted to demonstrate that she wanted him to take them off, but it was impossible to get through to him.
"Undressed, Andy," she said slowly, "you need to get undressed."
Finally, with her patience wearing thin, she reached out to him and pulled on his jacket, attempting to remove it from his shoulders. Andy pulled against her and let out a groan of doubt, suddenly becoming feared and unsure.
"It's okay," Molly reassured him, holding up the brochure once more. "Look, the woman in the bath, she doesn’t have any clothes on."
Andy scrutinised the picture again and looked down at himself, seeing the filth-ridden jacket and jeans clinging to his body. He looked back at Molly for her confirmation as he gripped the waistband of his trousers.
She nodded and then watched as Andy fumbled with his clothes. He was unable to undo the buttons of his jeans, so Molly reluctantly obliged him, turning her head and grimacing as she did so.
A new emotion crept into Andy, travelling through his limbs, making him unwilling to remove his clothing in front of the little girl. He trusted Molly, but something deep within told him that she should not be in the room when he began to undress.
Modesty was new to him and it made him feel vulnerable and exposed.
He looked at Molly and grunted, nodding slowly and indicating to his hands that tightly gripped the top of his jeans.
Molly smiled, partially with relief that she did not have to help him the whole way.
She pointed to the pile of towels and the bathrobe that she had placed on top of the toilet seat, and smiled at him as she headed for the door.
Andy watched her leave and then looked back down at himself. He had no idea how to go about undressing; a fear of literally falling to pieces once his clothes were removed skulked its way into the back of his mind.
He fought hard against his fears and, after a long struggle, he had removed all the filth encrusted and decaying clothing from his withered body.
He paused and looked down at himself.
His mottled, dark, wrinkly skin clung to his bones stubbornly. The muscle and flesh below had all but disappeared and his joints jutted out from his body.
Again, he ran his hand over the sealed wound in his abdomen as he stared at the bath with concern. He remembered the care that Molly had taken to repair him and his trepidation began to fade.
With a sudden influx of courage and determination, Andy climbed into the bath. He gripped onto the sides and slowly lowered himself in. He felt the liquid flow over his dried body and begin to penetrate his leathery flesh, surging into his brittle joints and bones.
He lay back and gasped.
It was a gasp of satisfaction, remembered more than physically felt, from the days when he had taken regular baths, and the sudden release of stress and tension that the hot steaming water had once given him.
He lay there for a long time, allowing his body to soak up much of the oils as they seeped into every fibre of his impaired frame.
After two hours of lying in the mixture, his skin had begun to soften. He touched the flesh on his forearm, feeling it move without breaking under his fingertips. Next, he raised his hands and rotated them, listening for creeks and groans as the joints rubbed against each other. They made no sound and moved smoothly as he watched their newfound suppleness with delight. He raised his legs and began working the knee and ankle joints, grunting with pleasure and excitement as they moved noiselessly.
Andy made his way down the stairs, wrapped in the bathrobe that Molly had laid out for him. It had taken him some time to climb from the bath and get the robe over his shoulders, but he was beginning to coordinate himself better than before, and was quicker at getting dressed than he had been at getting undressed.
He placed his steps carefully, taking his time for fear of losing his grip and slipping due to the oil that coated his skin. The fluid had soaked through the towel material of the white robe, leaving it a discoloured yellow, leaving a trail of oil in his wake on the carpet of the stairs.
While Andy was in his bath, Molly had lit a roaring fire in the sitting room. Even from the stairs, Andy could see its orange glow as it illuminated the sitting room. He staggered through the door, emitting a soft moan to inform Molly that he had arrived and was ready for her next instruction.
Molly looked up from one of the couches and placed the book that she had been reading to one side. She jumped from her seat, smiling broadly at him as she eyed him and began to walk towards him.
"How do you feel? Better?" she asked.
Knowing that her friend could not understand her words, she took him by the sleeve of the robe and led him over towards the couch, close to the fireplace. He sat down without a single groan or crack coming from his brittle body. He glanced up at Molly in surprise at the absence of noise from his joints.
"See, I told you it would make you better," she grinned, "you even smell better, too."
Andy stared back up at her, unsure of what she was saying but able to understand that she was pleased with him.
"You need to keep warm by the fire. It's very cold now," she instructed him as she checked the damage to his abdomen and confirmed that the stitches and staples were still holding his flesh together.
She sat on the coffee table in front of him, smiling at him affectionately.
"Would you like me to read you a story?" she asked eagerly, holding up a large colourful book for him to see. "It's one of my favourites, and there are pictures, too."
Andy settled into the soft cushions of the couch, slipping into a daze, listening to the gentle tones of Molly as she read to him.
He felt completely at peace and a wave of contentment coursed over his rejuvenated body.
22
On the orders of Marcus, the Puma helicopter conducted a low and slow sweep of the town centre. Nothing moved on the ground, and the deep freeze was complete. Everywhere they looked, grisly statues stood locked in place, frozen to the ground as the sub-zero temperature had crept over them while they lumbered through the streets.
Every surface of the built-up area looked opaque as the cold covered the land with a fine layer of frost, including the thousands of motionless bodies that filled the pavements and roads, and from the height, the numerous corpses took on the appearance of marble.
"Okay, Kelly," Marcus called through his headset, "find a clear place to touch down. Once we're clear, take off and stay on standby for a few minutes until I give the thumbs up, then return to base to save fuel."
"Roger that," Kelly replied as she began her descent towards an open piece of ground situated between a wide sprawling car park, and a large two-story building that looked like a college campus.
As the aircraft came in to land, the downwash from the rotors sent dozens of bodies scattering across the hard pavements and roads, their frozen limbs shattering as they were thrown and tossed against the concrete.
The wheels touched down with a jolt and Marcus felt the suspension bounce as the aircraft dealt with the hard surface below. He turned to the other three in the passenger compartment and, with a nod of his head, jumped from the starboard door and out onto the street.
His rifle was immediately brought up into the aim and he scanned the area around him, looking for any sign of movement from the dozens of figures that stood in all manner of stances around them.
Steve jumped from the door and joined his brother, while Lee and Carl exited the helicopter from the port side, covering their left flank.
"Okay," Marcus spoke through his personal radio to the other members of his team. "Push forward and cover the area. We'll remain static for a few minutes and allow a 'soak period'. Keep your eyes open, boys, we're in the lion's den here."
All four of them began to walk forward, away from the helicopter as the sound of its engine changed pitch and it began to rise back into the air.
Carl, kneeling down beside a wall, nervously looked over his shoulder and watched as the dark, bulky shape of the aircraft began to soar into the sky. Suddenly, he felt alone and completely detached from safety. He glanced across at Lee, who did not seem to notice the fact that the helicopter was leaving them on the ground in the middle of an infested city. As usual, Lee's attitude was one of complete indifference to danger and fear.
All around them, Carl could see hundreds of dark shapes, just standing there as if waiting for the order to begin moving again. He watched them, his brow sparkling with beads of sweat despite the freezing temperatures. At any moment, he expected the bodies of the dead to suddenly come to life and begin converging on the four exposed humans caught in the open. A shiver ran down his spine and he began questioning why he had volunteered, even insisted, on joining Marcus for the mission.
Carl's earpiece hissed and he heard Marcus' whispering voice speaking to him inside his own head.
"Okay, close in to me," Marcus commanded.
Lee turned and began to walk towards the wall of the college building where Marcus and Steve stood waiting for them. On the way, he stopped and began studying the closest of the frozen statues scattered along his path.
It was a woman, and despite the powerful downwash from the helicopter, she had remained standing when many of the others had toppled over like bowling skittles.
He eyed her up and down, and conducted a complete three hundred and sixty degree sweep around her as he inspected the unfortunate woman. Her
clothes looked relatively well kempt and clean, and her flesh did not look as decomposed and ravaged as the other bodies that he was used to seeing.
She had been a recent newcomer to the army of the dead; a fresh kill, Lee surmised.
He could see no injury that immediately stood out to him, but he noticed a dark stain on the lower portion of the right leg of her jeans. The material was torn; he guessed that she had been bitten, and had succumbed to the ravaging virus and fever that would have raged through her body over the subsequent days.
Her eyes were flat and lifeless, as was expected from the dead. The large black spots in the centre that had once been her pupils covered nearly the entire iris, but Lee caught a hint of their natural colour around the outer edges of the blackness, and he was able to imagine her with a pair of piercing green eyes.
Her face was pale and tinged with a blue green hue, but it was still that of an extremely attractive woman in her early thirties, Lee guessed. Her dark, wavy shoulder-length hair retained the form and shine of a living person, as though she had deliberately made the effort to reanimate as a good-looking corpse.
Lee smiled to himself at the thought of her brushing her hair and applying a final touch of make-up as she lay in her final stages of life.
He looked down and saw the bulge of her pocket, and reached in to retrieve her purse. He held the green leather pocket book in his hand for a moment, before looking up at her face one final time then turning to join Carl and the others.
"You finished chatting up dead people, Lee?" Steve remarked as Lee joined them at the wall, glancing back at the frozen body that remained standing where he had left her.
Lee shook his head, a troubled look on his face; Steve recognised something in him that he had never seen before.
"What's up?" Steve asked.
"Not sure," Lee replied with a shrug, "just that woman over there," he said, hesitantly and nodding towards the body that he had been scrutinising. "She was fresh, and I mean really fresh."
"Nothing we haven't seen before, though," Steve replied.
"Yeah, but…she was a beauty; or at least, she used to be."
