by Rich Hawkins
Ralph held eye contact with Frank, but the hostility was gone from his face. He exhaled through a clenched jaw. “Okay, I’m sorry. You’ve got some bollocks, I’ll give you that. I didn’t mean to…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Frank said. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“Kiss and make up, lads,” said Magnus, grinning.
Frank shook his head while Ralph grunted and looked away. He was holding the flare gun Frank had found.
“Be careful with that,” said Frank.
He tapped the flare gun against his forehead and winked.
Frank appraised his friends. They were exhausted and stressed. Hunted and haunted. Pale faces and red-rimmed eyes. He wondered what terrible things they had seen. Ralph appeared to be coping better than Joel and Magnus, although he had a rasping cough and his thickening beard made his face seem heavy and spade-like. There was a white plastic bag bulging on his lap.
“What’s in the bag?” asked Frank.
Ralph put the bag on the floor. “Not much. Things we’ve scavenged on the way here. A torch, a bottle of water, a packet of painkillers and some biscuits…”
“Better than nothing, I suppose.”
“Yeah, very true.”
Joel was rubbing the left side of his jaw, a nervous tic that Frank recognised. There was something shiny in his other hand, which was clenched into a fist. He noticed Frank looking and moved his hand out of sight.
Magnus was trembling and blinking his eyes. He looked ready to drop. His jacket was torn and there were stains on his trousers.
In the distance, something roared. Ralph moved to the front of the bus and shut the doors.
The wind murmured on the street outside.
*
“We managed to get out of Wishford.” Ralph looked at Frank, his face caught in shadow as the daylight waned. He told him about the attack on the rescue centre.
“We were lucky,” Magnus said.
“How did you escape?” Frank sat on one of the seats, sipping from a water bottle.
“We hid in the kitchen, in a pantry-like room where they stored food, and barricaded the door. The infected didn’t find us. We waited, listening to the screams. Then everything went silent. Eventually we crept out. There were only a few infected remaining at the school; the rest must have left in search of more victims. We managed to sneak outside and down the street. People were fleeing the town. We were running across the fields outside of Horsham when the bombs hit. Still can’t believe they firebombed the place.”
“Things are bad, if that’s the government’s solution to the plague,” said Joel.
Magnus scratched at his cheek. “But to firebomb a town on British soil? This isn’t the fucking Blitz.”
“There wasn’t a choice,” Frank told them. “The town was overrun. The infected were everywhere.”
“And that enormous thing in the sky,” Magnus said. “We all saw it.”
“What do you think it was?”
“It was alive. It wasn’t a ship or a craft. It was organic.”
“We don’t know that,” said Ralph. “It could have been anything.”
Joel nodded. “Yeah, Ralph’s right.”
“It was like a god,” muttered Magnus.
“It can’t be a god,” said Joel, with some impatience. He went to say something else, but stopped himself and simply shook his head. He looked sick.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ralph said. “We have to worry about the things down here with us.”
No one spoke for a while. It was almost full dark outside. They were four huddled darkening forms amongst the stinking seats.
“It’s happened to the entire country,” said Joel.
Ralph looked out the window. “Seems that way, from what we’ve heard.”
Magnus’s voice was hoarse and tired. “You reckon it’s global?”
No one answered at first. Then Ralph spoke.
“That doesn’t concern us at the moment, lads. We have to get home before we start worrying about the rest of the world. They don’t care about us. Fuck them, for now. This is England.”
Joel regarded Frank with melancholy eyes. “I’m sorry about Florence. Even when everything’s falling apart, people are still bastards.”
Ralph’s face soured and he sucked on his teeth. “Wish we could catch the men that took her. I’d cut off their bollocks if I got my hands on them.”
“She’s gone,” said Frank. His acceptance that he’d never see Florence again shamed him. He had lost her just like he had lost his daughter, and he should have been searching for her, but the men would be far away by now and monsters waited for him out in the dark.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Joel woke to the sound of helicopters flying over the village. He rubbed his eyes and yawned into his hand. A gradual increase in light as dawn broke outside. There was too much grey in the world and it depressed him.
The country is dying, he thought absently.
He checked to make sure his small crucifix was in his pocket. He couldn’t see the helicopters but the air trembled with their presence, as though they were flying close to the rooftops, and by the time he rose from his seat they were gone.
He looked at the other men. Magnus muttered something under his breath. Ralph’s mouth hung open towards the roof, catching dust.
He smiled at Frank, relieved that his friend was alive. They were all together again and it gave him some hope. He felt something like love for his mates.
After checking his mobile phone, which was almost dead, Joel ate a biscuit and looked out at the street to the side of the bus. His heart winced when he thought of Anya, and the desperation to return to her was almost overwhelming. He stretched the muscles in his face and cleared his throat, wetted his mouth with short sips of lukewarm water from the only bottle in the plastic bag. It was comforting to savour the quiet before the others woke. The village outside was a dead place and only the birds in the trees lining the street broke the morning’s silence.
Grimacing at the stiffness in his limbs, Joel sat down and wondered what sights he would see today. He took the photo of himself and Anya from his wallet and smiled at it then put it back in the wallet, which he then returned to his pocket.
The infected appeared in the street soon afterwards.
He ducked down in the aisle and froze, his heartbeat filling his head. Breathing slowly, he peered through the window on the right side of the bus.
The infected came prowling amidst the abandoned cars. He did a quick count. Fourteen of them, with jutting, twitching limbs held close to their bodies. Their vivid eyes leaked fluids. How could God allow such things to exist? Were they His creations? Was the plague demonic in nature?
And if his fears were true, did that mean the Devil was roaming the land?
One of the infected, a young boy, was limping at the back of the pack, making an awful, slow mewling. Joel’s heart broke at the sight of him. The boy crouched over a scrap of bloody clothing on the road and picked it up, holding it to his face and taking deep breaths. Joel watched him, amazed and horrified.
Was the boy a demon, unholy and damned?
Some of the pack scratched and scraped their fingernails on the side of the bus. Joel shivered as the fillings in his teeth tingled. He stepped down the aisle, watching the infected move along the road, and stopped near the front of the bus, waiting for the pack to leave. Moments later, the infected moved away and Joel slumped on a seat.
Behind him, the others were waking up.
*
Ralph found a Ford Fiesta with its keys in the footwell. There was a small torch in the glove compartment, which they added to the one already in the plastic bag. The car had a quarter-tank of petrol. Ralph volunteered to drive. Joel sat in the front with him. Magnus and Frank were in the back.
Frank seemed to be recovering from his beating yesterday, but he was bruised, and kept wincing whenever he moved too quickly. He talked about the girl he’d travelled with. He talked about her a
lot.
They left Broadbridge Heath just before eight. No sign of the infected Joel had seen earlier. No sign of anyone.
“What’s the plan?” asked Magnus.
Ralph eased the car around a pothole in the road. “We’re going home, that’s the plan.”
“Sounds too easy.”
“It won’t be. We’ve been lucky so far. Our luck won’t last.”
“Nothing like thinking positively,” said Joel.
They travelled through other villages and hamlets. Lone infected lurked outside houses, staring at the car as it passed.
Scores of crashed or abandoned vehicles lined the roads. A Dyno-Rod van had been tipped onto its side, and its driver, a heavyset man with long hair, was lying nearby, gutted and spilled open. Farther on, a tractor had slammed through a fence and into a tree.
Ralph stopped the car by an abandoned grocer’s van. The men stared at the pool of oranges that had spilled from the open back doors, from which two women with soot-streaked faces were filling plastic bags. They mouthed insults and threats at the men while revealing the knives tucked into their tracksuit bottoms.
Ralph drove on.
People were travelling across the fields, either alone or in small groups. Refugees. Others walked the roads. Ralph beeped the horn at them when they blocked the way. Men glared and swore at him. An old woman with a bloodied nose put one palm against the window and begged them to take her with them.
Ralph stared straight ahead. “We’re not stopping. We’re not stopping for anybody.”
“Where are they going?” said Magnus.
“Anywhere that’s safe.”
“They’re heading west,” said Frank. “Like us.”
Two men were fighting by the side of the road, swapping punches while a young woman encouraged them, waving her hands and shouting. She looked feverish, almost gleeful. The other people kept their heads down and ignored them.
Approaching the village of Slinfold, the numbers of refugees lessened until the road was empty again and clear of abandoned vehicles.
The car ran out of petrol tank ran empty and shuddered to a halt.
“Looks like we’re walking,” said Ralph.
Joel was holding his stomach. “I don’t feel too good.”
They left the car behind.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Frank’s legs were throbbing with pain and the rest of his body ached in sympathy. He felt used up. Tender bruises ailed him. Guilt and shame made his stomach boil when he thought of Florence. He popped two painkillers with a sip of water and ignored the grinding of his joints.
The men weren’t even halfway home.
Two miles outside the village, Joel vomited onto the grass verge, doubling over and retching until he cried and his eyes were red-ringed and sore. He spat by his feet.
Magnus stepped towards him. “Are you okay, mate?”
Joel wiped his mouth. “Feel like shit.”
“Did you get bitten or scratched by one of the infected?” Ralph asked.
“You’re asking me if I’ve got the plague? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Ralph was unmoved. “Don’t take it personally.”
“Don’t take it personally? You think I’m going to turn into one of those monsters?”
“I didn’t say that. I just wanted to make sure.”
“Piss off.”
Magnus fidgeted with his hands. “Were you bitten or scratched, though, Joel?”
Joel shook his head. “No, I wasn’t. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” said Ralph. “Do you still feel sick?”
“No.”
“Good. Let’s keep moving. We need to get to Slinford before it gets dark.”
“We’ve got hours yet,” said Magnus.
“I know, but we’re walking. Think about it, genius. I don’t want to be caught in the open when night falls.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Frank looked around the fields. He imagined the infected pouring out of the dark to swarm them.
*
One mile later they rounded a bend and stopped, staring down the road, none of them saying a word. There was thunder in the distance; Frank felt it inside his head. He rubbed his eyes.
“What the fuck?” said Magnus. His voice was a tired whine.
“Kids,” said Joel.
Fifty yards away, a group of children were standing in the centre of a crossroads, their faces turned towards the grey clouds. Eyes open, mouths shut tight like they were keeping a secret only they should know. Six boys and three girls clad in dirty clothes, barefoot and ragged, with dried blood around their mouths. One of the boys was wearing only a pair of soiled pants and socks.
“They’re infected,” Ralph said. “Why haven’t they attacked us yet?”
“Something else has their attention,” Frank replied as he took a few steps forward. He had a horrible feeling that Florence was among them, but there was no sign of her unmistakeable red hair.
The children were twiddling their fingers by their sides. The air thickened, almost electric, like the silent moments before a thunderstorm.
“What’re they doing?” Joel said. “What are they staring at?”
“The things in the sky,” said Magnus. “Like what we saw back in Horsham. The thing that drifted over the school. Those things are up in the clouds right now.”
“You can’t be sure of that. How do you know?”
“What else could it be?” said Ralph.
Joel swallowed, took a deep breath and looked ready to be sick again. “I remember when we were little and we used to go on walks across the fields and stop to sit down and eat our packed lunches. I would lie on the grass and look up at the sky when there were no clouds and there was just blue. It used to make me feel weird. Dizzy, almost. And small. I used to think the world would suddenly turn upside down and I would drop into that blue sky and keep on falling.”
“I remember you freaking out once,” said Ralph. “Crying because you were worried you’d fall into space. I took the piss out of you for weeks afterwards.”
“I was only eight years old. Cheers for that.”
Magnus shifted his feet. “Will they attack us if we get too close?”
“Let’s just go through them,” said Ralph.
“What? Are you mental?”
“Why not? They’ll either ignore us or they won’t.”
“What if they don’t ignore us?”
Ralph tapped the flare gun against his leg. “Then we’ll sort it out.”
“Ralph is right, unfortunately” said Frank. “What choice do we have?”
“Are you prepared to kill a child?” said Joel. “Even if it’s infected? Could any of you live with that?”
“Could you?” said Ralph. “You might have to before we get home.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“If you want to stay alive, you will.”
“Stop arguing,” said Magnus. “This isn’t the time.”
Joel and Ralph glared at each other. Joel was the first to look away.
“Do you hear that?” Magnus continued.
“Hear what?” Joel said.
“Vehicles. Engines.”
Several military vehicles were approaching the crossroads from the north. A patrol vehicle headed the convoy, followed by armoured trucks with mounted machine guns.
“Hide,” said Ralph.
Frank turned to him. “Why hide from the army? They can help us.”
Ralph grabbed Frank, pushed him to the roadside. Magnus and Joel stumbled after them. The men hid in a soggy ditch overgrown with grass and stinging nettles. It stank of stagnant water.
“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Ralph muttered. “Keep your heads down.”
“This is insane,” said Frank.
Ralph glared at him. “Just wait.”
Frank peered over the top of the ditch. A nettle stung his hand. The army convoy stopped near the children and several soldiers emerged from one of the tr
ucks.
The children continued to stare at the sky.
“Maybe the soldiers will put them in one of the trucks,” said Magnus. He chewed on the inside of his mouth. “Maybe they’ll take the kids to some sort of sanctuary.”
No one answered. Frank watched the soldiers gather in a line behind the children. One of the soldiers was shouting, but Frank couldn’t tell what he was saying.
Still no reaction from the children.
“Don’t look,” said Ralph.
But Frank looked, as did the others. His eyes felt hot and stinging. He didn’t want to watch but couldn’t stop himself.
The soldiers raised their rifles and took aim.
The children stared at the sky.
The soldiers opened fire and the children fell.
They would never look at the sky again.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Joel clutched his stomach. “I need to stop.”
“Come on,” said Ralph. “We’re almost at the village. It’s getting dark.”
“Darker than it should be.” Magnus offered.
Joel darted to the side of the road, bent over and vomited onto the grass. Magnus went to him and patted between his shoulder blades.
“Take it easy, mate. Take it easy.”
Ralph shook his head and snorted.
After Joel finished vomiting, he stepped back on to the road, ignoring Ralph. Coughing and spitting, he wiped globs of spit and mucus from his facial hair.
“You okay, Joel?” said Frank.
“They killed those children.”
“The children were infected,” said Ralph. “The soldiers didn’t have a choice.”
