by David Moody
The infected man stumbled forward, mouth-breathing, his chest heaving, holding out his hands like he was offering something vital and precious.
Eddie lowered the gun and fled.
◆◆◆
In the shadow of the church he moved through the graveyard, between headstones and Christian signs, stumbling and tripping, too afraid to look back. Graves decorated with imitation flowers. The names of the dead all around him and the cries of the infected echoed in the dying light.
Exhaustion pulled at him. Gravity thickened. The rain was upon him, the stones and the footpath he hurried along. There was a crawling shape among the graves that turned towards him and shrieked. He quickened his pace.
The vicar was sitting on a wooden bench, languid and skeletal, his head bowed to his chest and his hands entwined in a semblance of prayer. And as Eddie stumbled past, the vicar looked up with a slick-red face and it was only close-up that Eddie could see the writhing feelers emerging through the ragged holes in the man’s black clerical shirt.
◆◆◆
He fled through gardens until exhaustion brought him down and he knelt on a lawn in the rain and stared at the ground while thoughts of using the pistol occurred to him. The cries of the infected were closing in, and he didn’t have the strength to keep running. They would find him here and slaughter him upon the cold ground and the last thing he’d see would be the mad faces of the monsters.
His chest was so tight that he thought his ribcage was collapsing. A deep sob in his throat. He spoke Sam’s name and repeated it to the rain. He spoke other names, of those he loved, who were long gone. All gone, like so much dust at the end of the world.
He looked to the end of the garden, where a large doghouse stood on the lawn. Something for a Doberman or an Irish wolfhound, maybe. Big dog.
Eddie crawled to the doghouse and paused at the entrance. Peered inside, where nothing lurked or waited for him in the dark. He dragged himself inside and curled up on the foul-smelling grass like a lost animal that had found sanctuary from beasts and hunters.
The pistol gripped in both hands, he waited.
◆◆◆
The infected were in the garden, lurking among the overgrown grass and foliage while they wheezed through mouths deformed by vicious teeth. Shrieking calls and saliva-wet grunts, like some kind of proto-language.
Eddie began to cry. He kept the pistol close. He went deep inside his mind, because he didn’t want to be aware of the monsters’ claws when they found him. There was no bravery in facing a violent death. He went to a place in his mind where the sky was perfect blue and a lush meadow foamed around him. And then Ruth was there and she was older than the age at which she died, and they sat together under a sun so pale that it was white and blinding.
◆◆◆
Old memories and lost voices, the faces of long-departed friends. The bodies in the burning pits. The machinery of the universe. When the dead came to pay him their respects, they asked when he would come with them.
◆◆◆
The rain fell softly. The garden was silent, but Eddie didn’t trust it. He breathed into his hands to warm them. His body temperature was dropping with the onset of dusk. The patch of daylight through the opening was steadily darkening.
He stiffened at footfalls on the grass and his hand found the pistol, and he felt sick that he’d have to use it again. He tried to listen past the pounding of his heart. His legs were going numb and one arm was aching with pins and needles.
Someone was standing outside the doghouse.
He thought he could hear the visitor breathing through some sort of restriction. A vague shadow darkened the opening. Eddie thumbed the pistol’s safety off.
Come on, bastard. Hurry up.
And then the shadow pulled away and the sound of damp footfalls receded into the rain.
When Eddie emerged from his hiding place, it was almost dark and the garden and the tall trees were all shadow.
◆◆◆
Eddie left the village in the bleak dusk as the rain hit the ground like falling stones. Into the fields, glancing around, keeping watch; startled at each sound that came out of the trees or from ditches bristling with stinging nettles, thistles and swarming briars. He staggered faster as darkness fell. Shadows all about him like unwelcome companions. Animal cries from the woods and the hidden places. There would be no moon over the fields tonight and he kept thinking he would lose his way. He was brittle and hollow-boned, breathless and frantic. God, he felt older than ever and weak in his heart.
‘I’m sorry, Sam. I’m sorry.’
◆◆◆
Sick with fear, Eddie reached the house as the darkness caught him and he pounded on the door and shouted for Sam to let him inside. There had been sounds behind him, like discordant voices and the suggestion of footsteps through bracken and soft dirt. Perhaps it had been his imagination or the trampling of wild animals; he just wanted to get inside, so he could rest in the comparative safety of the house.
The door opened and Sam stood past the threshold with the knife in his hand. The boy was in tears, his face moon-pallid and fearful. ‘I thought you weren’t coming home, Grandad. I thought something had happened to you.’
Eddie fell into the house and told Sam to close the door, slam the door; shut away the dark.
◆◆◆
The windows were shut tight and the doors were locked. Eddie had changed into dry clothes and downed a coffee laced with whiskey. They ate dinner in the frail light of birthday candles. Macaroni cheese from a tin, with crackers. Afterwards they went into the living room and played chess. Sam was getting good. Eddie could barely keep his eyes open.
‘Are you feeling better now, Grandad?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because you’ve got some whiskey. I watched you put it in your coffee.’
Eddie paused with the mouth of the flask near his lips. He smiled through an aching mouth. ‘Yes. I feel better.’
Sam moved his rook and took one of Eddie’s pawns. Then he looked at him. ‘I’m glad you feel better.’
◆◆◆
Eddie put Sam to bed and read The Gruffalo to him. Sam fell asleep telling him about his favourite football players. Then Eddie kissed him on the forehead and tucked the blankets around his shoulders. He went downstairs and sat in his armchair. He drank, watched the front door, and kept the pistol close at hand on the arm rest.
He closed his eyes and slept.
◆◆◆
During the night, Eddie woke and watched Sam creep into the living room in his pyjamas and dressing gown. Eddie pretended to be asleep, as in the pale light of a candle Sam put a blanket over his legs to keep him warm.
◆◆◆
In dreams, Eddie returned to that day at the end of summer when he had woken on the kitchen floor of his council house to the rise and fall and wail of sirens; like those that would’ve signalled the four-minute warning during the Cold War, to herald an impending nuclear strike.
Eddie couldn’t remember passing out. He climbed to his feet and winced at a headache that was like tiny hands pounding on the inside of his skull. On the electric cooker, a frying pan held a congealed raw egg and two strips of bacon within a layer of vegetable oil. Next to that was a pot of cold baked beans.
The cooker was switched off at the wall; the dials for the hobs were at their highest setting. ‘Jesus.’ His voice was hoarse and dry. He rubbed his itchy eyes. When he swallowed, it felt like gravel scraping down his throat. He drank a glass of water and downed two paracetamol. Put on his shoes with some difficulty and almost fell over. Then he drank another glass of water and winced at the turmoil in his stomach.
He had left the front door unlocked, and he stumbled outside to the front garden, squinting at the daylight. The sound of the siren scared him, and last night’s ale was slowly rising to his throat. He stood in the garden as the breeze stiffened the hairs on his bare arms, and looked out at the road, where a car had stopped over the white lines i
n the middle of the tarmac. There was someone in the driver’s seat with their head laid back, facing away from him.
The siren echoed through chambered streets and above the city. On a nearby road, a car exhaust backfired, and he flinched when a sound that must have been fireworks came from down the street. He could smell ash and burning oil, hot tar and plastic.
A thin plume of smoke rising from beyond the silent houses on the other side of the road. Someone was shouting from the block of council flats a few streets away. Why were people letting off fireworks this early on a Sunday morning?
The siren slowed, faltered and then died. The silence that followed made him feel exposed and vulnerable. But vulnerable to what?
He stepped towards the car and was about to knock on the window when the person in the driver’s seat turned their head. Eddie halted and put his hands to his mouth. And then he fled from the awful face he’d seen.
◆◆◆
At the dining table they ate a breakfast of biscuits and stale breadsticks. Eddie slurped coffee with powdered milk and sugar, still aching from the day before. His thoughts drifted to the bottle of scotch in the living room.
Sam eyed him over the biscuit at his mouth. ‘What will you do when you finish your whiskey, Grandad?’
Eddie wiped coffee from his lips. ‘I’ll sort something out. Your grandad’s a wily old dog.’
Sam looked down at his food. ‘I miss dogs.’
‘They’ve all gone wild now,’ said Eddie.
‘I know.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘I know.’
The front door rattled from three knocks.
They looked at each other. Sam was the first out of his seat. Eddie went to get the pistol.
◆◆◆
Eddie checked the rounds in the pistol. ‘Go to your room, Sam. Stay there until I tell you to come out. Don’t come out for anyone else.’
‘Can’t I stay here, Grandad? It could be someone who needs help. Someone like us.’
‘Go to your room.’
‘Please, Grandad.’
‘Do as I say, Sam.’
The boy began to walk away, then turned back and he looked at Eddie. A movement in his mouth, but he said nothing. Eddie sent him on his way.
◆◆◆
Three knocks again. Weak and slow. Eddie pictured a frail hand upon the door. Through the frosted glass panes, a slight figure, like a manifestation of sticks and feathers.
Eddie turned away and went to the back of the house.
◆◆◆
Eddie quietly opened the back door and stepped outside with the pistol in his hands. He shivered in the cold and the thin rain, listening to the sound of rushing water in the trees. He crept along the side of the bungalow and peered around the wall.
Turned towards the door was a short, scrawny man in an oversized raincoat and boots clogged with dirt and dead leaves. He was side-on to Eddie, and from under the sharp hood of the coat was the profile of a thin face with a long beard dripping with rainwater. Stooping, as vague as a shadow. The edges of his body lost in the large waterproof. A visiting ghost in filthy garments.
Eddie stepped around the corner of the house and levelled the pistol at the visitor. The man turned, and raised his hands when he saw the pistol. Fingerless gloves. Eddie could smell him.
Small dark eyes regarded Eddie from beneath the hood. A flat mouth within the raggedy beard; and when it opened, Eddie saw a glimpse of dulled teeth. Scabbed lips. The skin of his fingers was calloused and gnarled.
Eddie sighted the pistol on the man’s chest. ‘What do you want?’
The man let out a breath that was damp and rattling. ‘Thank God. I thought I was alone out here.’ He glanced at the pistol. ‘I’ve been wandering for months. My name’s Yost.’
‘Yost?’
‘Yes.’
‘Strange name.’
‘It’s just a name.’
‘What do you want?’
Yost exhaled. Sniffed. Swallowed. ‘I saw the light in the window so I thought there might be someone living here. I just need to get out of the rain for a while.’
‘There are plenty of trees to shelter under.’
Yost coughed wetly, then went to wipe his mouth, but thought better of it and kept his hands raised. ‘You look like a good Christian man. Won’t you help me?’
‘I was raised Catholic,’ Eddie said. ‘And none of that matters now.’
‘I just need somewhere to stay for a little while, until the weather clears up.’
‘There are a few abandoned houses around here. They’ve been looted, but they’ll give you shelter.’
Yost shivered in the rain; Eddie wondered if it was deliberate, to elicit his sympathy. ‘There might be infected in them. It’s dangerous out here. There’s nothing but the infected and packs of wild dogs.’
‘I can’t let you in.’
‘I’m not dangerous.’ There was a note of pleading in Yost’s voice. ‘You have a gun and I have nothing.’
‘You have nothing,’ Eddie said. ‘What’s in the bag?’
‘Just some old memories. Nothing that would concern you, my friend.’
‘I’m not your friend.’
‘We could be the last ones left,’ said Yost. ‘There’s no one out there. The infected are everywhere. Would you send me back out there to die? Would you do that to another man when you had the chance to save him?’
Eddie took one step forward. The rain fell like punishment. ‘You’re nobody to me. Leave us alone.’
Yost looked at the muddy ground around his feet and the slump of his shoulders was more pronounced. When he looked back at Eddie his face was forlorn and full of such misery that Eddie considered using the gun to release him from his miserable existence.
‘Us?’ Yost asked.
‘What?’
‘You said ‘leave us alone’.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Yes, you did.’
Yost stepped back and almost slipped on the wet ground when Eddie moved towards him. Eddie stood less than two yards away and aimed the pistol at his face.
‘I will shoot you. Don’t think I won’t. I will shoot you in the fucking face and that will be that. Do you understand me?’
Yost nodded, shaking in his ill-fitting clothes.
The sound of the front door being unlocked made them turn their heads, and when the door opened Sam stood behind the threshold and stared out at the men with fearful eyes. The shape of his mouth was like a bloodless wound.
‘Please don’t shoot him, Grandad. You’re not a bad man. You’re not supposed to kill people.’
Eddie moved away from Yost and towards the house, but Sam had already stepped outside in his coat, blinking at the rain sloping against his face.
‘I told you to stay in your room,’ Eddie said.
‘I know, Grandad.’
‘Hello,’ Yost said to the boy.
Eddie turned to Yost and raised the pistol. ‘Don’t talk to him. Don’t say a word to him.’
Sam touched Eddie’s free hand and looked up at him. ‘It’s okay, Grandad.’
‘Get back in the house, Sam.’
‘You said we would help people.’
‘What?’ Eddie didn’t take his eyes from Yost.
‘You said before that if we found other people we’d help them, because there aren’t many of us left. Were you lying, Grandad?’
‘No.’
‘Then why can’t we help him?’
‘Because he’s a stranger.’
‘If you kill him, you’ll be a bad person.’
Eddie turned back to the boy. He was so tired and aching, and he felt utterly useless, soaked and wilting in the rain.
‘Please,’ Yost said, and his voice was pathetic and slow. Cowed in the rain like a man at the end of all things. ‘I’ll die out there. I’ve got nothing left. You’re killing me.’
‘We don’t kill people, do we, Grandad?’ Sam looked up at him with pleading eyes. Ed
die felt something crumple in his chest and then he was nodding faintly. He lowered the gun and looked at Yost, who was staring at the ground.
‘Okay. You can stay, for a little while.’
Yost raised his head and his mouth trembled. A look of utter gratitude and disbelief in his face. A brief, tearful smile, and then he sniffed, wiped his eyes.
‘Really?’
Eddie nodded.
Yost was close to tears.
Sam gently squeezed his hand. ‘Thank you, Grandad.’
Eddie looked at him. ‘Don’t thank me yet, lad.’
◆◆◆
The rain upon the windows and the doors. Eddie made Yost empty his pockets and the plastic bag and then walked him to the spare room at the back of the house. Sam followed, asking questions that Eddie ignored, while Yost said nothing and bowed his head. Rainwater dripped from their clothes.
Eddie opened the door and showed Yost inside. Yost looked at him and complied. The dim daylight revealed the room. There was a bed in one corner, covered in a dusty blanket. No other furniture. Featureless walls.
Eddie kept the pistol in sight. Yost sat on the edge of the bed and looked around. Sam stood outside the doorway and peered into the room. Eddie frowned at him.
‘I’m going to lock the door,’ Eddie told Yost. ‘I can’t let you walk freely around the house.’
Yost nodded slowly, a dull lustre to his eyes. ‘I understand.’
‘I’ll bring you some food and water soon.’
‘Thank you.’
Eddie left the room and turned the key in the door to lock it. Sam watched him. Neither of them said a word on the way back to the kitchen.
◆◆◆
After giving Yost a cereal bar and a cup of water, Eddie looked over the man’s belongings on the kitchen table. A wallet and a dead mobile phone. A plastic cigarette lighter without any fluid and a pocket edition of the Common English Bible with a tattered spine and creased pages. Various trinkets and keepsakes. Some old coins and two pink buttons. There was a pencil worn down to little more than a nub half the size of his little finger. Eddie opened the wallet and pulled out a photo of a red-haired woman whose expression intimated her reluctance to the person behind the camera. Scribbled in blue biro on the back of the photo was: Selina, 17/6/12.
