by Wood, Rick
Hell, look what happened to him when he lost those he loved. He’d spent six months drinking himself to death, just waiting for the right moment.
But Gus had a feeling Desert’s constant bad mood was something more than that. That there was some deeper resentment in her mind.
He wasn’t sure how bothered he was about finding out what it was. If it would help her to get it out in the open, great – but if it made her reckless, he’d rather she just let it go, got on with it, and focussed on their mission.
“It’s time to go,” Desert announced.
Gus woke Sadie up gently, and they all readied themselves.
Preparing to re-enter the facility.
The place where Gus, Sadie and Donny had been taken prisoner and tortured for months.
Now it was abandoned and overrun with the infected.
But it was time they had answers.
They needed to find out what had happened to Donny. They needed to know what Eugene Squire was doing.
And in the remnants of the facility were the answers they were looking for.
Chapter Three
They walked as they always did. Gus leading the front, followed by Desert and Sadie, and Whizzo lagging behind.
Gus considered talking to Desert. Walking slowly until he was beside her and asking her what was troubling her.
But what was the point?
He’d just get the same response he’d received the last time he tried, and the time before that, and the time before that.
A barely inaudible grunt of “nothing.”
Honestly, if that was how she was going to be, he wasn’t that bothered. He wasn’t inclined to waste his time knocking on a door that had evidently been shut, locked and bolted.
So he let his mind wander.
And he thought about something he had been thinking about a lot over the last few days.
Donny.
Whether he stood a chance against him, and what he would even do if he did.
Donny was evidently part of whatever Eugene Squire was planning. The question wasn’t whether or not a confrontation with Donny was inevitable – it was what their approach to that confrontation was going to be once it happened.
The obvious solution had presented itself to Gus, albeit very briefly – killing him. But this solution was dismissed in the very same thought.
Donny had done for Gus what no one else could. He’d helped him find purpose. And Gus did not wish to repay that by ending the guy’s life.
So what then?
The next question was whether or not there was an element of humanity left in Donny.
Whether there was something left to save.
Whether the old Donny was still there.
And this led Gus to think back to their previous fight, to think about how Donny could have killed Gus – but didn’t.
Why didn’t he?
Another memory abruptly presented itself to Gus’s thoughts, in the way that memories so often do. A journey from the deep subconscious forced to the forefront of his mind like a punch through a brick wall.
Back when they were driving together, just after meeting Sadie…
Sunglasses.
Or shades as Donny had so uncoolly termed them.
Donny had moaned about how he’d been desperate for a cool set of shades. That he’d always wanted them.
Gus had retrieved some for him from a shop he looted. A way of apologising for his snappy manner, for being the person he was.
Donny had bloody loved those shades.
Sunglasses, Gus reminded himself. Don’t start calling them shades too…
That person had to still be there.
Didn’t he?
They approached a small cluster of zombies, all gathered around an open corpse, feeding like hyenas in a zoo.
Gus looked at them, knowing they were once people; maybe even with a humorous nature or naïve sensibilities like Donny.
Now look at them.
Brainless. Numb. Dead.
And Gus’s hope diminished.
It wasn’t like he was about to reason with these infected.
No – he was going to kill them.
Was Donny any different?
He dropped his head. A pain ran from the back of his skull to his forehead and stayed there, resting like a laser beam piercing into his brain. The whole situation was one giant migraine.
“No guns,” Gus said to no one in particular. “We don’t want to attract anymore.”
Gus took out a broad machete, presented it, and clanged it against his aesthetic foot. Desert took out a similar weapon, Sadie readied her hands, and Whizzo backed away.
The infected turned and promptly ran toward them.
Gus lunged his weapon into the cranium of one, Desert into the head of another – and Sadie dispatched another three in half the time; swiping her nails like claws through their heads and removing them from their bodies.
Gus looked back at Whizzo, who was shaking.
“You all right?” Gus asked.
Whizzo nodded.
Gus put his hand affectionately on the back of Sadie’s neck and smiled at her. She smiled back.
Finally, he turned to Desert.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she answered, and continued walking.
By the time the sun had reached the highest point in the sky they had approached broken fences, and the daunting task began to loom over them like the darkened buildings of the facility.
BEFORE
Chapter Four
The fire was lit, the television was off, and the moon was placed perfectly in the sky.
Laney sat neatly in her father’s arms, like a circle nestled flawlessly inside a bigger circle. Her eyelids were drooping but she refused to let them close, and refused to let her dad know, for fear that the moment would end and the announcement that it was time for bed would be made.
“Have you not had enough yet?” Gus asked, though there was nothing in his voice that suggested he wanted the moment to end either. The bounce to his pitch was playful, and his arms were wrapped in a warm snuggle around Laney.
“No! More!” she requested.
“Fine, fine,” Gus said, smiling warmly. “What shall we read next?”
Laney stretched from the armchair to the bookcase. She found a book that was way too big for her and pulled it out. Its corners were turned up, the edges scuffed and scrapes of the tatty image on the cover were missing.
“This one?” Gus said. “Really?”
“Yes!”
“I’m not sure. I think this book is more meant for big girls. Maybe in a few years’ time.”
“No! This one!”
He sighed, taking the book and looking over it. He didn’t recall ever purchasing or acquiring this book. Maybe it was one of Janet’s.
“But what if you don’t understand what’s going on? What if you don’t know what’s happening?”
Laney shrugged. Like it mattered!
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
She gave a little cheer and placed the entire weight of her head on his chest; which was hard and muscly, but to her, was always soft.
Gus tried to read the title on the cover, but it had been destroyed beyond legibility. Instead, he opened it, and looked at the title written in Times New Roman upon the front page.
The Ever-present.
Where had this book come from? What even was it?
Ah well, if that’s what she’s asked for…
He flicked the pages to chapter one.
“It was a tough day,” Gus began. “But it was never tough enough for Roy. He could take a cast-iron morning and turn it into a fluffy afternoon. His hands were rough from working, and his belly hard from drinking, but underneath, his soul was as elegant and beautiful as a soul ever could be.”
He glanced at Laney, knowing full well that she was not picking up on any of the nuances of the language he was delivering. Still, she remained engrossed and enthralled, gri
pped to every strange word.
“Are you sure about this?” he checked.
“Carry on, Daddy, carry on!”
“Okay,” he said, and kept on reading. “He worked hard day and night. Tooth and nail, as his old man would say – though his teeth were sparse and his nails broken. Still, he worked tooth and nail, as it is said, until he had enough to provide his children with central heating and a holiday and a puppy and every other pleasure he could dote upon them.”
Her eyelids were drooping, he could see that – but she did all she could to fight it. So he kept going.
And he kept going.
And he kept going.
Eventually, he had to take her to bed. She had entered the realm of dreams and there was no way she could have continued to fight it. He gave her a kiss on the forehead, whispered good night, and turned the light off as he left.
He asked his wife, later that evening, whether she had bought this book. Janet said that she didn’t recall. She chuckled when Gus mentioned that Laney insisted on having it read to her. Glancing over the first few pages, she acknowledged how big some of the words were and descriptive some of the language was – but, nevertheless, Laney requested the same book again the following night.
And the following night.
And the night after that.
And the night after that, and after that, and after that.
Until she no longer had to request it, and Gus was automatically awaiting her in the evening with the book in his hand and his lap empty.
It took months to get through it.
And Gus was positive she didn’t understand a word.
But she loved her father’s reading voice; if warmth was a sound, that was how it would be.
But, several months after the first word had been spoken, the conclusion to Roy’s story came about and she was sad to hear it.
But that book became Gus’s favourite.
He read it again himself a few months later, when he was stationed in Afghanistan – as if reading it somehow made him closer to his daughter.
He returned with the book even more tatty than it had been to begin with, but he returned with it nonetheless – in fact, he treasured it more than he treasured his water or his packets of food or his gun that defended him against the enemy.
Until the day came that Gus was discharged, just before the infection broke out in London.
Then the book was the last thing he thought about, and it was left behind with his family.
AFTER
Chapter Five
The infected, when left unstimulated, were odd – even odder than they were when running at you with their jaws snapping, eyes wide and decaying fingers outstretched. They were usually a terrifying sight, so to see so many standing dormant around the circumference of the facility appeared, in the only way Gus could describe it, odd.
“What do we do?” Whizzo asked, remaining behind the others. They all lay flat out on their bellies, beside the broken-down fences, watching whilst staying invisible.
Gus could probably count twenty-something. It wasn’t the greatest number of them he’d ever faced, but it was still not an ideal task.
“So where is it we need to go?” Gus asked, as if it would somehow help him to come up with a clear plan.
“The office of Doctor Janine Stanton,” Whizzo replied. “We think it’s either on the first or second floor.”
“Of which building?”
“I don’t know.”
There were five or six buildings, each of them large and foreboding. This didn’t help.
“Sadie,” Gus said. “You found Donny – which building was he in?”
She looked to Gus, her eyes resting on his for a moment, trying to figure out what he meant. She understood, it just took her a little longer.
Eventually, she raised an arm and directed it at the building furthest to the left.
“Brilliant.” Gus turned to Whizzo. “And you’re sure this is where we’ll find stuff about what they did to Donny?”
“Sure?” Whizzo echoed, shrugging. “Is anyone ever really sure of anything anymore?”
Fair point.
Gus huffed. It was lucky, in a way, that the infected were all loitering in their own space, spread out sparsely over the terrain. This meant there were only a few they had to creep past.
Then again, they had no idea what quantity of infected were inside.
“Any ideas?” Gus asked Desert, hoping she was planning to be a little more helpful than she had been so far.
“Distraction?” she suggested. “One of us pulls them away as the rest of us enter.”
“Nah, I’m not happy letting someone go off on their own.”
She gave a wide-mouthed shrug, as if to say, then what the hell did you ask me for?
“Let’s get as close as we can,” Gus decided. “Come on.”
He ignored Desert’s glare. At no point had they decided that Gus would be leading them, and he knew it would just be another thing she would add to her list of resentments, but someone had to be decisive.
They stayed low as they crept around the circumference of the fallen fence. Gus never took his eyes off the infected. Every now and then, one of them would sniff, or snap their jaw, or twitch in their direction, and Gus would feel each of his limbs stiffen – all the limbs he had left, that is. But they were stealthy and silent, and they made it unnoticed to the fallen barrier about thirty or so yards away from the entrance – the door of which hung open like the gates of hell, leading them to a corridor of god-knows-what.
There were three infected lingering their way.
“Creep up behind and do it quietly, in synch. Understood?”
Sadie paused, then nodded.
Gus turned to Desert, who did not nod, but gave a petulant stare.
Whatever.
“On three,” Gus decided. “One, two, three.”
Remaining crouched, Desert, Sadie and Gus crept up behind one of the infected each. Following acknowledgement with brief eye contact, they disposed of their zombies – Desert and Gus with a knife to the head, and Sadie by scraping her nail along the infected’s neck and pulling on their hair to remove their head. She appeared a little troubled by a wayward oesophagus that took an extra tug to separate from the body, but after an extra pull or two the head came off.
Gus looked around to see if they had attracted any attention, and kept looking as they made it to the door which was half-attached to the entrance, its glass shattered.
Gus nodded at Whizzo, who rushed to their side.
Gus looked around at the others, feeling a little nervous – which was odd, as he never felt nervous. This was his forte. War was his playground. He’d fought many powerful enemies and killed them without a second thought.
It was Desert.
She was making him uneasy.
In Afghanistan he knew his comrades would have his back.
Here, he had no idea. Whatever was going on inside her head was a mystery to Gus, and he was worried it was going to make her reckless.
“You cool?” he asked her.
“I’m fine,” she replied.
He did not feel reassured.
“I’ll take point,” Gus said, and entered, slowly, calmly, knife ready in his right hand and his left resting on the gun attached to his hip.
The rest followed.
They were in.
Chapter Six
You cool?
He asks it like it’s profound. Like a crap dad trying to be hip. Like it’s something to like about him.
“I’m fine,” she tells him, coldly, and intentionally so.
“I’ll take point.”
Of course you will.
Of course you damn well will.
Desert’s fingers flexed and tightened.
Fool.
Every time he mentioned Donny it was in the same breath as ideas on how to save him.
Save him, oh let’s save him, oh how can we save the homicidal freak who led them into
a trap and killed Prospero?
They wouldn’t save any of the other infected.
She grew fed up of her opinion being dismissed so many weeks ago that she had stopped voicing it, and decided to internalise it, to harness the anger like an untrained dog pulling on its lead.
So they were entering the facility.
Risking their lives to find research that would tell them what was done to Donny.
Research that, for Gus, would show them how to save him.
For her, it would show them how to kill him.
He’s still good, still good, still so good, good left in him, oh so much good left in him.
Back when society was intact, you wouldn’t have a murderer go on trial and be found guilty just to have the judge say ah, well, there’s still good in him.
No.
You would lock him up.
If the death penalty existed in that judge’s location, the idea would be vigorously entertained.
As far as she was concerned, Gus had gone past sense. Far past it. So much so, Gus was standing atop the cliff of irrationality and sense was too far below to even make out.
Desert did not intend to let Donny live.
But would she tell Gus that?
Would he listen?
And there he was, taking point. Leading. Like he was the one they should follow.
Like he was in Prospero’s place.
Like he was in charge.
That decision had never been made. Had never been discussed nor decided.
Desert wasn’t always the fiery warrior she had become. Once, she was Lucy Sanders. A timid secretary for Eugene Squire, working more hours than she should, being pushed and kicked around like it was all she was worth.
Then Eugene threatened her life and she escaped and she changed.
She grew a backbone. A heart. A fist she could punch with.
And never again – repeat, never again – would she be willing to let someone push her around or treat her as she was treated a year ago.
She would not let herself become the person she had been after battling so hard to become the person she had become.
They approached a corner in the corridor. Gus raised his right arm and closed his fist. Typical army sign for stop.
