On the Third Day

by Rhys Thomas

  The breeze moved in the dead ferns. Around the bend were quick moving footsteps. Miriam could see the torchlight from the horseman playing over the ferns and brambles. The animal whinnied hauntingly from the top of the cliff as its rider descended the path.

  When the light came into full view, the lead man lunged up the path. Miriam heard a grunt and some thuds. More of the men moved forward. The horseman groaned as they attacked him. Miriam listened to the sound of rubble scratching beneath feet, of disturbed movement, of violence, and all she could think about was the fact that somehow she would see her children again. She turned away and put her hands together. Under her breath, she said quickly, ‘Thank you,’ and opened her eyes again and the silvery beach that shone below her had never looked so beautiful.

  He was aware of the bodies around him. Some were whimpering in the dark. It was a peculiar trait of the stricken that they would always lie on their back with their faces straight up. Their families sat around the beds in the same way that Charlie sat with Emily. The sound of gunfire was a distant boom and nobody cared.

  Emily was sleeping. He had been there for nearly ten hours and she had said nothing to him. In the recesses of his mind, behind the swirling darkness, he wondered how long he had left with her.

  The lights had been shut off but he could see quite clearly, by the moonlight, the whiteness of the veils that hung over each of the beds.

  He thought about the world as it would be in three days, when she was gone. Without the central pivot on which all his actions hinged he would spin off into darkness. He wished that time could be stretched so that three days were smoothed out into six, or nine. Three was not enough.

  The door at the far end of the long, thin room creaked open. Charlie didn’t look to see who it was. He remained in the cold plastic chair at the side of Emily’s bed. Behind the white veil she would have looked already dead were it not for the slow rise and fall of her sleeping chest.

  The doctor with the white hair and beard came and stood next to him. He spoke with a gentle, faintly accented voice. ‘How is your leg?’

  Charlie didn’t answer.

  ‘Please, Charlie, I need to speak with you.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Shall we go into the next room?’

  Charlie did not want to move.

  ‘Charlie, it is difficult. I know this. But you should come with me.’

  ‘You know,’ Charlie said, his eyes not moving from Emily, ‘she could have been killed a few weeks ago. Our car was attacked and she got herself trapped. George ran out into the middle of the street, someone was shooting at him, and he pulled her out. It was a miracle.’ He laughed. ‘That’s what I thought at the time. I really did.’

  ‘I know the story.’

  ‘But it was pointless. The whole thing was pointless. Look at her now. I mean, what was the point in saving her then only to take her now?’

  Dr Balad said nothing to this.

  ‘I guess you’ve heard all this before. People wondering why, trying to justify it.’

  ‘It is in our nature to seek out meaning. It is one of our chief driving factors.’

  Charlie looked up at the doctor.

  ‘Please,’ said Dr Balad, ‘come with me.’

  She walked across the sand barefoot, the freezing wind cutting easily through her nightdress. From the camp she and her mother would have looked like two ghosts drifting along the beach from the sea. Miriam had not felt this light in years. It eclipsed the darkness of the year past, eclipsed any feelings of anything in her life, in fact. She had been given an impossible second chance.

  Much further behind them the men from the camp carried the horseman they had captured by the arms and legs. There was hope in the air. She could feel it on the wind, could hear it in the crashing of the waves against the shore. The extra weight of the baby was nothing any more.

  They walked past the metal containers. The doors were just ajar and they could see the occupants peeping nervously out of the gaps. The men from the camp told them they had caught one of the marauders. There was joy in their voices.

  The beach thinned at the far end where the cliff curved in towards the water. The entrance to the camp was just beyond the marram grass, where the car park had been. More of the metal containers punctuated the silver sand as black oblongs.

  When they saw their mother, the children bolted out of the shadows and scuttled across the beach. Miriam could see the tracks their feet left. The sand spat up around their ankles in white clouds. Edward was still carrying the shotgun in his hands. Miriam and her mother went down to their knees and opened their arms.

  They went through the far door, deeper into the lighthouse building. Charlie looked up into the darkness of the tower. Dr Balad led him through a door into another part of the building. They were on a thin stone corridor. The walls were whitewashed and small square windows let in the moon.

  They came to a square room with a table and four chairs in it. There were some cupboards there and a sink. It looked like a first-aid room.

  ‘Just a little further,’ said Dr Balad.

  The final room was small and cramped. Dr Balad flicked on a weak light. There was a steel desk, behind which he sat himself down. There were some books on the desk and along one wall stood a bank of filing cabinets.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  There was a cheap plastic chair in front of the desk. A bundle of white dust sheets were on it, which Charlie lifted up.

  Dr Balad spoke in clear, declarative sentences.

  ‘There is no easy way of saying this. Your girlfriend is very sick. She is going to die, and there is nothing we can do about it. We all know that people react differently to the illness and so I ask you: is Emily safe? And before you answer, please remember that other people’s safety is at stake.’

  The chair was cold. The room was freezing.

  ‘She won’t do anything,’ he said.

  He fidgeted to make himself comfortable. He understood the doctor was merely doing what had to be done but that did not help. Deep down, Charlie suspected he was hoping to hear this man tell him of a magical cure. He thought about what he had said to Miriam, about the arrival of the illness presenting people with a series of tests against which they were forced to pit their wits. Words had never felt so hollow to him.

  He sat forward.

  ‘So can I go now?’

  ‘Please,’ said Dr Balad. ‘There is something else I would like to talk to you about.’ The doctor put his palm on one of the books. ‘We have, I suppose the best way to describe it is, an initiative.’

  The dim overhead light accentuated tiny rivers of red veins running across the doctor’s cheeks. He shifted in his seat. ‘I am talking about euthanasia.’ The legs of his chair scraped against the floor in the pause. ‘I am sorry to speak so directly to you but let us not circle around the facts. We have a man here at the camp who can help you.’

  Charlie’s arms felt cold. He folded them over into his chest. His mind started to revolve.

  ‘What’s that for?’ He nodded to some electrical boxes on the wall on Dr Balad’s left-hand side.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Dr Balad looked at the boxes. ‘Something to do with the lighthouse, I guess.’

  ‘Does it work?’

  ‘I don’t know. We wish to conserve power here, not waste it. I know this is difficult for you, Charlie, and it may seem monstrous, but you will not be the first to accept. If I may suggest, think of it rationally. We do not really know what happens when the people become infected but they seem to suffer the most terrible torment.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear this,’ Charlie mumbled.

  ‘Perhaps not, but the choice is yours to make. It is not so monstrous as you might suspect. Consider this: the food we have saved alone through our initiative has fed the entire camp for one day.’

  ‘Stop calling it that,’ he said. ‘And is that all that matters? How much food you can save?’

  ‘You know it is not.’
/>
  Charlie hung his head.

  ‘You should think about it seriously before you make a decision. Think of what is best for Emily.’

  I know what’s best for her, he thought. ‘How do you do it?’ he asked.

  ‘That is not important. Do not burden yourse—’

  ‘It is important.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Where is the person who does it?’

  ‘We keep him out of sight. He prefers it that way.’

  ‘So this is why you keep people away from the lighthouse?’

  ‘Keep people away?’ Dr Balad’s brow became creased. ‘I do not know what you are talking about.’

  Charlie felt repulsed.

  ‘So as we go happily about the camp, thinking everything is going fine, we are just a moment away from death.’

  ‘We always leave the choice to the family.’

  ‘Yeah? What about that man I saw getting ill in the woods? His family were already dead. Who made the choice for him?’

  ‘Please, Charlie, do not get angry. What is the difference between one day and three?’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  Dr Balad did not look away. ‘He was euthanized.’ He stared at Charlie with moral certitude.

  ‘So where was his choice?’

  ‘I have spent far longer in the company of the sick than you have, to be blunt. The suffering some of the people experience is truly terrible. I wish you could understand.’

  Charlie shook his head in disbelief. He felt like he had been betrayed.

  ‘So all that stuff about trust – that really means nothing.’

  ‘We do not tell people about it because there are some things that are more important.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We need to maintain our collective hope. What we offer is ugly and difficult and will erode hope. But we must at least offer it. Do you not see that?’

  Charlie did see it. But that did not make it acceptable.

  ‘We did not arrive at this choice with any easiness.’

  ‘I don’t want to do it,’ he said categorically.

  Dr Balad nodded once.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Then it will be so.’

  She slept deep and late. When she woke she lifted her head from her pillow and looked at her sleeping family. She was in McAvennie’s trailer. He had brought her here last night, made sure they were comfortable, and left again.

  Miriam knew the danger all around her was growing in, but the gratification of being with her family blocked it out. She had been away from them for twenty minutes at the most, but that short distance had a depth far greater than ordinary time. The reality of never seeing her children again had reared up high before her. She knew now what it meant.

  The door to the trailer opened and the children stirred as cold air washed into the room. They lifted their heads groggily and then dropped them back down into the blankets.

  McAvennie hadn’t slept. The rim of hair around his head was sticking out even more than usual. Large bags had appeared beneath his eyes.

  Miriam looked at him and smiled. ‘What’s happening?’ she said.

  McAvennie sighed. ‘Hard to tell.’

  ‘Are we safe here?’

  He stretched his back and there was a loud click of bones aligning. ‘I don’t know.’

  Another wash of cold air and a second man stepped up into the trailer. Miriam recognized him as the American who had come to her house after being attacked. She nodded to him.

  ‘Hey,’ he said absently. To McAvennie he said, ‘We’ve locked him in the lighthouse.’

  ‘OK.’

  McAvennie turned to Miriam. ‘Can you tell us what happened last night?’

  She tried to explain but the events had become unreal. She remembered seeing the man on a horse up against the wall of the house.

  ‘We crept down to the cellar.’

  McAvennie didn’t take his eyes off her. He was waiting to hear about his men, about how she had done nothing to alert them of the danger.

  ‘I didn’t think to . . .’ She trailed off. ‘Your men. Do you know what happened to them?’

  He shook his head.

  The American spoke. ‘We haven’t been able to go up there.’

  ‘But there’s no more fighting?’

  McAvennie sat down in a plastic chair near the door. ‘We have one of their friends. The man who chased you. It should buy us some time.’

  ‘So you’re going to try and talk to them?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’re not exactly used to this sort of thing.’ The stresses were starting to show as red blotches and grey stubble. ‘The people are scared and jumpy.’

  ‘And there’s nowhere to run,’ added Fields.

  ‘We could go out past the lighthouse,’ Miriam offered.

  ‘There’re no roads there. It’s all forest,’ replied Fields.

  McAvennie slapped the arm of his chair gently.

  ‘We don’t want to run away.’ He looked at Miriam. ‘I need you to do me a favour,’ he said.

  She looked out over the sea of faces. McAvennie was standing next to her, waiting to start speaking. He had brought her to a semi-constructed building. It looked like it was going to be some sort of long hall. Beams of timber were stacked in piles behind them and the front porch of the building acted as a low stage.

  People were coming up and asking quickly what was happening, what had happened last night, what they were going to do. Worried expressions creased their faces as McAvennie told them as calmly as he could that he would explain everything. Their eyes flickered to Miriam and then back to McAvennie.

  McAvennie turned to Fields, who was standing at the side of the stage. He nodded to him. McAvennie stepped forward to the microphone.

  ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Can you hear me?’ He tapped the head of the microphone. ‘OK.’

  The crowd fell completely silent.

  ‘So last night was a bad night.’

  The people moaned as one voice. The sound resonated through her body.

  ‘The marauders attacked us again.’

  The noise of the crowd rose. Everybody knew what had happened but they somehow expected their leader to be able to offer them something more than the truth.

  ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen. So we need to make decisions.’

  A voice rang out from somewhere near the centre of the crowd.

  ‘We do know. They’re coming to kill us and use the kids as slaves.’

  Miriam looked around for the source of the voice. There was a commotion near the middle. Some people were shouting.

  ‘OK, calm down,’ said McAvennie.

  The volume of sound was increasing. People were turning away from the stage to see what was happening. To the far right, Miriam saw some men moving towards the commotion. And then the crowd started to move. It looked like a tide. Heads bobbed up and down as one shape and the shouting was louder. A fight had broken out.

  McAvennie shook his head and stepped back from the microphone. It was falling apart. The camp was disintegrating.

  A circular gap in the crowd had formed, in the centre of which two men fought.

  Miriam squinted when she saw their faces. One of them she did not recognize but the other was unmistakable. It was the man with the forked tongue who lived beneath the lighthouse. There was a thin line of red running down from either edge of his mouth and, as the men dragged him off, she could see he was smiling.

  McAvennie covered the microphone with his hand and called across to Fields, ‘That’s it. That’s it for him.’ He took his hand away. ‘Stop it,’ he called. His voice was loud now. ‘You’re behaving like animals.’ He said the word animals with menace. ‘Still. After everything.’

  The crowd turned slowly back towards the stage.

  ‘It’s unbelievable,’ he said.

  The people watched but were not silent. There was something dangerous about them, something latent and threatening.

  ‘We must n
ot lose our heads now. Of all the times we have to stick together, now is that time.’

  Miriam glanced across to Fields at the side of the stage. He was staring out over the crowd, trying to see who was doing what. She felt many eyes on her. She was exposed.

  ‘This woman,’ said McAvennie. He swung his left arm in an arc towards her. ‘She was the one who lived up in the house on the top of the hill, aye? She’s lost everything. It’s a miracle she even made it out alive. But she did.’

  The crowd’s interest had been caught now. The muffled voices were desisting.

  ‘This woman is pregnant,’ he declared.

  McAvennie turned to her and put his hand over the microphone again.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked with a reaffirming nod.

  The eyes of the hundreds of people were on her belly. She could see people near the back standing on tiptoe, their heads swaying back and forth to see, like the heavy tops of wheat blowing in a field. She nodded gently to McAvennie.

  Every voice had fallen silent. It was so quiet that the sound of the sea lapping the beach in the far distance could be heard beyond the low bluff. The danger that had been hanging so pervasively had dissipated in an instant.

  ‘You see now?’ said McAvennie.

  The hush said they did. Miriam tried not to focus on anybody. They seemed themselves to be like children, willing to follow, easy to shape. It was not the normal way that people behaved.

  ‘There is hope,’ he said. ‘We are still not like them.’ He pointed off up the hill.

  A woman at the front of the crowd leaned forwards. ‘But we’re scared, George,’ she said. Her eyes glanced at Miriam and then fell away.

  ‘I know that.’

  A man made his way to the front and threw his hand up into the air.

  ‘Come on, George, this has gone far enough. This empathy crap is fine when you haven’t got . . . psychopaths bearing down on you. We’ve got one of their men, right? Where is he?’

  ‘No.’ McAvennie shook his hand. ‘We’re not going to do anything rash.’

  ‘Says who? Look, you’re a nice guy, George, we all know that, but you’re not the leader. Those people have been coming closer for weeks. They’ve killed our friends. If we don’t do something then they are going to come down here and they’re going to kill us as well. Mims might be a prick, but what he said is true. They won’t just leave us be.’