On the Third Day

by Rhys Thomas

  ‘Run,’ he snarled.

  Miriam turned. Her legs circled beneath her. The ground was uneven and she almost tripped. Only the sheer will to survive kept her upright. Behind her, Grace started to scream. She daren’t turn back. She needed to get help. Everything was out of control. The footfalls of the man chasing grew louder as he gained on her. She just kept running.

  She reached the street and screamed towards the church.

  ‘Help us! Somebody help us!’

  The men guarding the church door looked up and when they saw Miriam, waving her hands wildly in the air, picked up their metal pipes and ran for her. That they had heard her, that they were coming to help, brought a great breath of relief. It moved through her and fogged her mind. She had to stop. Exhausted, she put her hands on her knees and tried to breathe. She looked down at the trainers that Joseph had insisted she wear; the trainers that had borne her safely over the wasteland.

  The sudden sound of feet coming too fast cut her breath clean off. The man who had been chasing her. A jarring, physical blow sent her sprawling across the floor. Her knees skidded painfully across the tarmac of the road, the material of her jeans ripping open and exposing her skin and then flesh to the concrete. She felt her centre of gravity roll up her body and spill forwards as the sky turned upside down.

  She jumped up and spun around blindly. Screaming pealed from the church. The doors were open and the crowd started to spread out and away from the building.

  Men spilled out of the doors and chased the fleeing crowd. They moved like the man on the wasteland; too fast, not like humans. One of them leaped on to the back of an old woman, who fell to the floor under his weight. Miriam watched, half in horror, half in utter disbelief, as he grabbed the old woman mercilessly by the back of her hair and smashed her face into the road.

  There was a scream now, much closer: her own voice. With unknowable ferocity the man lifted the old woman’s head again and brought it down once more into the concrete.

  Everything now, all of the violence, the death, the unknown, had congealed into a pulsing conglomeration in her chest. It smothered her and cut off the links to rational thought. She ran as fast she could in the opposite direction.

  She passed the wasteland. Grace was lying over Anton’s body. His eyes were open and lifeless. Miriam hooked her arms under the priest’s, her mind swinging recklessly between primal and rational.

  ‘Grace,’ she whispered into her ear. ‘We need to go. It’s too dangerous.’

  There was surprisingly little resistance from the priest. Her body was light as Miriam lifted her to her feet. Anton’s mouth was stained red and his skull looked an odd shape. The skin was no longer tight along the forehead.

  Grace herself was injured. She held her arm and there was a cut somewhere beneath her hair that leaked blood down her face. She was crying.

  ‘Grace, please,’ Miriam said softly.

  ‘I can’t leave him. He’s my brother.’

  Miriam pulled her back towards the road. Grace’s feet dragged in the dry, dusty dirt and carved out small, wafting clouds of yellow sand. Miriam stumbled back over the collapsed fencing and looked down towards the church, at the mass of people running and screaming.

  They stumbled along the road arm in arm. Those who were not hurt overtook them. Nobody stopped to help.

  Joseph’s apartment had changed. Slabs of canned food were stacked in the centre of the living room. A plastic box full of paper lay on top. Next to the food were three large water containers, all full. Next to those was a large metal toolbox. The French windows across the room were open and a song was playing on the radio.

  Now that she was still, Miriam felt the pain in her knees return. The muscles tensed around the cartilage and seized the joint. She looked down. Her trousers were torn open and hanging from her knees in untidy triangular flaps.

  ‘Where are we?’ said Grace.

  Her voice was groggy, her eyes half closed. The cut on her head was worse than Miriam had thought.

  Movement came from the bedroom and the black form of Pele lumbered slowly across the room.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Joseph came from the bedroom. He looked tired. His eyes passed from Miriam to the female priest she had brought into his home, and back to Miriam. ‘What are you doing?’

  His voice was tense and the anger she had felt that morning came back quick and strong.

  ‘Give me a hand, Joseph.’

  He paused. She felt like screaming at him.

  ‘Through here,’ he said, at last.

  He led them into the bedroom and found a towel from his wardrobe, laid it over the pillows and rested Grace down on the bed.

  ‘We need to have a word,’ he said to Miriam.

  ‘Why did you leave the flat?’ said Joseph, sternly.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ she started, and then stopped. She couldn’t believe he was going to try and turn this around to put the blame on her. ‘Why the hell did you leave me?’

  ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Her voice betrayed her rising emotion. He always thought he knew best, that he was the proprietor of some great insight that other, lesser people did not share. It was hard to believe he was Henry’s brother. How could such similar boxes have such differing contents?

  ‘I had to go to the university, I told you that. And I had to collect all this stuff.’

  He gestured at the stacks of food in the centre of the room.

  ‘You knew I wanted to see my mother.’

  He shook his head, as if he was talking to a child, as if he had done nothing wrong and she just couldn’t understand that.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Where do you think I’ve been? I’ve been trying to get to my mother’s.’

  ‘Fuck,’ he said shortly, closing his eyes. Miriam gasped. ‘You mustn’t go out without me. Can’t you see what’s happening?’

  ‘I can see just fine.’

  ‘How can we get to your mother if you’re dragging strangers in off the street?’

  Miriam said nothing to that.

  ‘You have no idea about people, Miriam. You have no idea what they’ll do when forced into a corner. You just don’t understand how dangerous it is out there.’

  Miriam went to say something but had to stop. Her voice was about to break. She looked at her feet and sensed Joseph’s eyes on her.

  ‘What have you done to your knees?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re fine.’

  He went to the cupboard underneath the sink. Through the open windows droned the sound of a passing aeroplane.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, with his back to her. ‘It’s just that I feel responsible for you.’

  ‘You’re not responsible for me.’

  ‘Well, I feel like I am.’ He filled a bowl with water. ‘You’re a better person than me, Miri, there’s no doubt about it. But you have to be more careful. You can’t help everyone. It’s craziness.’

  ‘She’s hurt.’

  Joseph lowered his voice.

  ‘I know, but we can’t help everybody who’s hurt. It’s just not possible. I know you want to help but we can’t. We have to concentrate on being safe. What would have happened to your kids if you’d been killed?’

  Miriam stopped.

  ‘We can’t be ideological now. This is reality. Fifteen thousand people are dead, Miri. In London alone. Something bad is going on and I don’t get why you can’t see that.’ He shook his head incredulously. ‘Please, Miri, no more stupid risks until the government tell us what’s happening.’ He knelt down before her and placed the bowl of water at his side. In his other hand he was holding a green first-aid box, which he unclipped. He paused. ‘You’re going to have to take off your trousers for me to deal with this.’

  They looked at one another. He had said it quickly and offhand but still Miriam flushed.

  ‘Go and help Grace first.’

  ‘No. You’re first.’

&nbs
p; Joseph picked a band of wadding from the first-aid box.

  ‘Her head is—’

  ‘I’m not going to help her until I’ve helped you first. That’s the way it is. Think of it as a rule.’ Miriam knew it was useless to argue. ‘Look, have you got a dress or something? You can go and put that on if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she lied.

  ‘I won’t be offended.’

  He looked so much like Henry from certain angles. The sound of the outside world came in through the French doors, but it was diluted and separate from the room. She made her decision, unfastened the buttons of her jeans and pulled them down over her hips. She felt exposed in her underwear. She sat back, her knees two inches apart. Joseph took her left knee in his hand and when he did a complicated tingling ran up her thighs. He placed a cloth into the bowl of water and washed away the blood. The water was cool on her flesh.

  ‘What happened?’ he said, softly dabbing her wounds.

  ‘There was an accident,’ she said slowly.

  ‘An accident?’

  A breath of wind caught the curtains.

  ‘I don’t know what it was.’

  Joseph leaned his head to the right to inspect his work. He took from the first-aid kit a small bottle of disinfectant and placed the wadding over its neck.

  ‘What’s that box of papers?’

  ‘I printed them off at the university, from the internet. It’s the government’s plans for emergency.’ He looked at her and saw she was smiling. ‘You’re mocking me,’ he said.

  Miriam laughed, suddenly aware of how ludicrous this all was.

  ‘I’m sorry, Joseph,’ she said.

  Joseph lowered his head and dabbed her knees. The pain burned up her legs and she winced. She eased open her eyes and looked towards the windows at the blank white sky and the tops of tall buildings that made their clutching grasps at it.

  Miriam was sitting on the bed next to Grace with Pele at her feet. She stroked his head and the dog panted contentedly. This was the first time things had been still.

  Joseph had bandaged Grace’s head and she had fallen asleep. When she woke she covered her face with her hands, the memories coming back with consciousness.

  ‘We left him there,’ she sobbed.

  ‘We had to,’ Miriam said quietly. ‘He was gone.’

  ‘No.’ Grace brought her knees up into her. ‘We left him. He was my brother and we left him.’

  Outside the window, behind the clouds, the sun was beginning to set. Soon it would be night again.

  ‘Here,’ she said, offering the priest a glass of water.

  Grace took it in a shaky hand. ‘I have to get back.’

  ‘You can stay here.’

  ‘No, I need to make sure that everyone is OK.’ Suddenly Grace looked away and her mouth widened. She covered it with her hand. Her eyes narrowed and her body started to shake. ‘What’s happening?’ she cried. ‘Why is this happening?’

  Miriam shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Miri.’ Joseph was standing in the doorway, his face in darkness, his hand leaning against the frame. ‘The Prime Minister is about to speak,’ he said.

  ‘Last Wednesday the first cases of a previously unknown disease were reported. The emergent illness has caused a great deal of fear, not only here in the United Kingdom, but across the globe. The World Health Organization has confirmed cases in one hundred and twenty-seven countries thus far. In the United Kingdom, every area has been affected, the large population centres and the remote areas alike.

  ‘Because of the speed and seemingly instantaneous surge of this phenomenon, details are still unclear.

  ‘Before I begin I would like to assure the British public that its government is doing all it can in these extremely difficult times. Cross-departmental programmes for dealing with such an event have been formulated meticulously over many years and, as we speak, agencies across the country are rolling out their contingency plans in accordance with government policy and thinking.

  ‘The phenomenon has claimed many lives, this is the truth, and we expect it to claim many more. Despite our best efforts, there will be many deaths. We need to be prepared for this difficult truth. I should also say at this point that the death rates being announced in the media are not accurate. There have been a total of four thousand deaths related to the illness in the UK up to this point, not the two hundred thousand that have been reported in the press. Such rumours only help to stoke the fear that could prove extremely damaging for the country. The figures may seem frightening, but you should be aware that winter flu alone claims between twelve and twenty thousand lives every year.

  ‘I want to state categorically that our plans are strong and will certainly save lives. Together as a nation we can conquer this. It has been my long-held belief that the ability to face adversity head on is the people of Britain’s greatest strength. It is in times of crisis that we excel, and this is a time of crisis. We must excel.

  ‘And now I will outline information that we have as hard fact. More details will be available from various sources. My speech will be followed by the Chief Medical Officer and he will give website addresses and phone lines that the public can use free of charge. You may want to get a pen and paper so that you are ready to take down necessary details. Further to this, leaflets with pertinent information will soon be available from hospitals, doctors’ waiting rooms, walk-in centres, post offices, banks, libraries and many shops. There will be no postal scheme for the distribution of literature and information at this stage. This literature will be distributed in due course as and when we have more understanding of the illness.

  ‘Scientists across the world are striving night and day to gain insight into the nature of the illness. Results so far have proved inconclusive and further testing is being conducted. The life cycle of the disease stands at the moment at between two and a half and three and a half days. The victim shows no physiological decline in health over this period but the illness has so far resulted in fatalities through causes that are at the moment unknown. We will not speculate about the cause of death – we will only report facts to you.

  ‘The symptoms of the illness are not uniform but do seem to follow a distinct pattern in the early stages. The visible symptoms usually begin upon waking, though this is not always the case. The patient will appear withdrawn, or uncommunicative. They may become silent or speak of a depression that has descended on them.

  ‘Many people have been worried about the effects the illness has on its victims in the later stages. Early estimates suggest that four per cent of infected patients undergo radical personality changes after approximately one and a half days. These may manifest themselves in a number of different ways, the most worrying of which is a tendency towards violence, although many others have been noted.

  ‘Many of you, I know, are worried about the current reports of disturbance. It is true that there has been a rise in incidents since the emergence of the illness, and the public should be alert. If somebody is stricken with the illness take them to your nearest hospital or GP surgery as soon as you can. Be vigilant. If they do show aggressive tendencies, call the police or try to get help from neighbours and friends. Restrain the victims as best as you can.

  ‘As Prime Minister, it is my duty to report to you the facts. In this situation I have made the decision not to cloak any of the information that I have. As it stands, everybody who has contracted the illness has died. Neither we nor the World Health Organization have found any cases of the illness receding in its victims. This is not to say that we won’t see people becoming resistant to it, it is just that it has not happened yet. This type of mortality rate is unprecedented in viruses and presents a challenge to our scientists, but they are confident that the human body will be able, in time, to adjust to this phenomenon.

  ‘New information will be reported to you as soon as we get it. I’d like now to tell you what is going to happen in terms of the nation�
��s infrastructure. And that is very little. People will still go to work. Without work the economy will crumble – food deliveries will not be made, foreign imports will slow, civil amenities will slide. The wheels of industry must be kept turning. I urge all of the public to put aside their fear and be cohesive, as a society. Everybody has a role to play. The schools will not close, public transport, including the London Underground, will continue to operate as normal. Cutting people off from one another to curtail the spread of a disease has been proven not to work when the illness becomes widespread across the population, as it already has. Closing transport links at this stage will only make things worse. The emergency services will still be available and will double their efforts to help the Great British public.

  ‘There will be frightening times ahead but we must not bow to pressure. Only together can we succeed. Do not listen to rumour, do not pass up the opportunity to help your neighbour. We are one nation and as one nation we can and will go forward. God bless you.’

  The nearest village was two miles away. With the children safely loaded into the back of the car they wound their way along the narrow coastal road. Henry’s father parked up in the small car park at the side of the shop and opened the back door for the children.

  They clambered out, their puffy winter coats restricting their movements.

  The sound of cars moving was noticeably absent. The village was small; the main high street was just a few houses, a shop, a pub, the church with its tall steeple, which he could see from his house, and a post office. Behind the high street were two small housing estates. Henry’s father had half expected the place to have become a ghost town, and felt a lift in his heart when he discovered there was at least some activity. A couple were walking a dog and one man was sweeping his front garden path.