by Jack Lewis
Melissa walked up next to me. “We can stop in there,” she said.
There was a farmhouse. White paint covered the walls but patches had fallen away and revealed the stone underneath. A mold-encrusted gutter hung off the side and looked like one gust of wind could send it crashing down. Gaps dotted the roof from where the slates were missing. It looked like the kind of house that the moors murderers would rent.
“Sure,” I said.
It was pointless to argue. Right now, they all hated me, and I couldn’t blame them. The evidence against me was on the ground, in the form of a sick little boy. Maybe Lou’s summary of me had been right. Perhaps I was a dick.
That was one thing I liked about Lou. Blunt as she was, she never hid what she thought of you, and that meant I could trust her. There were some things that she kept buried, but we all had secrets in our past that we didn’t want to drag into the present.
“Finally, a door that isn’t locked,” said Lou.
I watched her open the door. Some of the pain left my shoulder, as if my muscles were thankful that I wasn't going to barge it open.
Alice carried Ben in. The first room was the living room. There was a couch, a log-burner fireplace, a coat stand, and a bookshelf filled with a mixture of books, most of them classics. Alice put Ben down on the couch. A film of dust kicked up into the air, and she wafted it away.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in a while,” I said.
Lou walked through the living room and into the open-plan kitchen. I heard cupboard doors opening, pots clanging.
“Don’t know about that,” she called. “There’s some veg here that’s just the right side of poisonous.”
I walked through into the kitchen. My stomach ached at the thought of fresh vegetables. I realised that for the past few days a knot of hunger had been in it, and now it had loosened. Spit pooled in my mouth.
Lou turned tossed a carrot in my direction.
“Where the hell are they from?” I asked. I’d learned to be wary of anything good.
“There’s a patch growing at the side of the house. Whoever lived here was growing them. Now shut up and eat.”
I savoured the moment. I let my mouth water, my stomach cry out. Then I put the carrot to my lips and took a bite. Wow. It was sweet, crunchy, fulfilling. I had never tasted anything like it, and it took all my restraint not to devour it. But I was aware of where we were. A strange house with signs of recent occupancy. I couldn’t let my guard slip until we were sure we were alone.
“Stay here Lou. Keep an eye on everyone.” I looked at the living room. Justin stood at the bookcase. Melissa sat next to Ben and stroked his forehead.
“Justin, you got a sec?”
He walked over to me. “You okay Kyle?”
I nodded. “Need to check upstairs. Can you give me a hand?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
The stairs creaked. Every time the wood moaned I had to stop myself from grabbing my knife. The hairs on my arms rose. It didn’t matter how many times I had seen them, the idea of infected lurking in strange rooms always put me on edge. You can handle it Kyle. What’s the worst they can do? One short stab to the brain is all it takes.
We stopped outside the first room. The door was made of dark brown wood with patterns carved into the panels.
“Where’s your knife?” I said to Justin.
He shrugged.
“Do you just not give a shit anymore?”
Another shrug. I bit my lip.
“You open the door, I’ll be ready.”
I held my knife tight in my hand, had my arm ready to strike. Justin reached forward and twisted the door handle. It creaked. My hairs stood on end. He turned it all the way and pushed it open. As the door moved, I held my breath and waited for an infected to launch itself at me. Nothing happened.
We walked inside and looked round the room. It was a master bedroom with a queen-sized bed. The sheets were tucked into the mattress and cushions were on top of the duvet. There was a walk-in wardrobe full of clothes, and a full length mirror leant against a wall. I avoided looking at it. I didn’t want to see the thin, bearded man who I knew would stare back. I turned to Justin.
“What’s going on kid?”
He held my stare. A beard lined his jaw and hid some of the youth of his face, but patches of skin still poked out. Red flecks swam in the white of his eyes. The infected had the exact same red worm-like flecks in their eyes. A scientist named Whittaker had injected Justin with something in his efforts to find the cure, and Justin had fallen into a coma. I didn’t know what he’d done, but Justin was different now.
Justin scratched his neck. “What’dya mean?”
“Come off it. You’ve been acting weird for weeks. Moping around, dragging your feet. Not saying a damn word.”
He sat on the bed, and the mattress sunk underneath him despite how light he was. Justin didn’t weigh much before, but the last few weeks had taken it out of him. It was like part of him had been sucked away.
He looked at the ground. “Guess I just haven’t felt the same since…you know. I don’t know what he did to me, but I don’t feel the same. It’s like I’m me, but there’s something else in here with me, watching.”
A sour smell in the room made my nostrils twinge. I walked over to the window, twisted the lever and opened it. The winter chill sprang on my face, but it didn’t clear the smell. Outside the grey clouds had multiplied and smothered the sky, and the grass swayed in the wind. I had my back to Justin.
“Listen,” I said. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want. But just try and keep it together. Even if you have to act. It’s killing Melissa.”
“I know.”
“Good,” I said.
I glanced in the full-length mirror on the wall. Justin sat on the bed looking down at the floor. A figure moved behind him. My heart felt like it was going to leap through my chest and up my throat. For a second I couldn’t move, but then my instincts fired. I span round.
An infected was behind Justin. Its eyes burned with hate. Hair hung in clumps from the side of its head, but rotten skin lined the top. It staggered toward Justin, the hunger in its eyes stronger than any desire a normal person could feel. It was too close to him. Only a foot separated them, and I could never get there in time. I strode across the room but a shock of panic flooded my chest because I knew I was going to watch my friend die and I couldn’t stop it.
But then the infected walked straight past Justin. It ignored an easy target and focused on me, its black eyes staring at my face, the red flecks swimming in the whites. It staggered across the bedroom.
I held my knife, counted my breaths. When it was close enough to lurch at me I sidestepped and let it go straight past. Then I span round and stabbed my knife into the back of its head, breaking through the bone and piercing the brain. It fell to the floor with a thud.
Justin sat on the end of the bed. His chest rose up and down as he struggled for breath. His face was paler than usual.
“Okay?” I asked.
He nodded. I didn’t know why I’d even asked, of course he was okay. Justin wasn’t the one in danger. For some reason it had completely ignored him and had chosen me. I bent over and caught my breath. My heart thudded in my chest and my fingers shook, so I squeezed them around the knife.
3
The day slipped and the black of night closed on the sky like a casket lid. The darkness folded on the fields and made them a featureless black plain. The stalkers would be out soon, but the saving grace of this farmhouse was its complete isolation. The wind rattled at the single-pane windows, tapping like a visitor asking to come in.
I found Alice in the third bedroom. Ben lay in the bed, his eyes shut, and Alice tucked him in. The bed sagged underneath her weight. I felt a pang in my stomach when I saw the boy. His pale skin and sweaty forehead, his chest rising up and down with irregular breaths. I’d pushed them to this. I’d made the kid walk much longer than his little body cou
ld carry him, and now he was paying for it.
The floorboards creaked underneath me, and Alice span round. Her face creased into a frown.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked past me as though she didn’t hear me. Then she shook her head, snapped out of it. “What?”
I took a step forward, felt the floorboards bend under my boots. “I didn’t mean to push him so hard. I just can’t shake this feeling that the wave is going to catch up to us.”
Alice nodded. “Come here,” she said, and patted the bed next to her.
I walked over, sat down. I looked at her and felt awkward. She grabbed my hand and put it on Ben’s forehead. His skin felt like ice.
“He’s freezing.”
“Yep. Doesn’t stop him sweating though.”
I swallowed. “What’s actually wrong with him?”
“His immune system’s shot from exhaustion, and he’s caught a bug. Kids aren’t meant to hike hundreds of miles through rain and snow.”
I looked down at the floor. The timber of the floor was scuffed, and splinters stuck out from it. This wasn’t a welcoming home.
I turned to Alice. “Would you rather we take our chances with the wave?”
Alice pulled the covers over Ben’s neck and up to his cheeks. “I’d rather leave you guys than put him in danger again. You’re driving us too hard. When Ben’s better, we're going.”
***
Lou was taking inventory in the kitchen. There was a dining table in the centre of the room, and Lou had laid out anything she thought would be useful. Various knives used for cooking, a few pans for boiling water. Lighters. Water bottles. Plenty of utensils. It was handy stuff, but not what we needed.
“No food?” I asked.
She picked up a knife, held the blade close to her face.
“Blunt as hell,” she said, and dropped it to the table. She turned to me. “No food, aside from the vegetables from earlier. We could make a stew if we had spare water, but I think we’re better just eating them raw.”
“Sure. I’ll leave that to you.”
I pulled a chair from underneath the table and sank into it. The faint whispers of Justin and Melissa drifted in from the living room. Outside, the wind moaned. On ground level, the darkness of the fields outside looked even more foreboding. I expected a stalker to be slinking through the grass, sniffing out another victim.
“Where’s Sana?” I asked.
Lou put both hands on the table and leant against it. She shook her head. “Out in the shed,” she said. “Stupid cow won’t stay in here with us.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. “Let me guess. Because of me.”
“Yup.”
Sana blamed me for the death of her husband, Faizel. He was a good guy and an excellent scout. When we first heard the rumour of a wave of half a million infected marching together, I set out to see if it was true. Faizel came with me, but he didn’t come back. An infected bit him, and Lou had put him out of his misery with a machete.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said.
“Let me call a press conference,” said Lou.
I smirked. “Have you had a look at Whittaker’s notes lately?”
Lou shook her head.
“I have,” I said. “Most of it might as well be Dutch. But I can pick out the odd thing. I think there’s something true in what he said about the cure. I think he was close to finding one.”
Lou pulled out a chair. She sat in a slouch and propped one boot up on the table. “He was full of shit. Guy was crazy.”
“He might have been, but being crazy doesn’t mean you’re always wrong. Look, something happened upstairs when Justin and I cleared out the bedrooms. An infected surprised us, and it was close enough to Justin to bite him. I couldn’t do a damn thing. But it didn’t go for him. It ignored him and came straight for me.”
“Maybe he’s a picky eater,” said Lou.
“Be serious,” I said.
Lou leant forward. The smile dropped from her face.
“I don’t know about a cure. I think Whittaker was a crackpot, I don’t care how good a scientist he was. But I’m worried about the kid. That weird shit in his eyes. It makes me uneasy.”
I sighed. Something was going on with Justin, but it was beyond me to figure it out. What was happening to our group? Sana preferred an outdoor shed to sharing the same room with me. Alice was upstairs, taking care of her son who I’d made ill. Where was I leading them? Was there any point to this?
I gritted my teeth. There had to be a point. As long as we stayed ahead of the infected, we were winning. Every second we spent alive was a small victory. The only thing that would be pointless would be to give in.
I stood up and inspected the tools on the table. The knives were dull and the pans rusty, but they were better than nothing.
“We need a plan,” I said.
Lou put her arms behind her head and rested on them. “Glad you’re finally thinking my way,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong, staying ahead of the wave is still the priority. They’re not going to stop just because we’re sick of running. But we need somewhere to run to.”
Lou sucked her cheek into her mouth, screwed up her eyes in thought. She spoke. “There are loads of remote places in Scotland. Villages with nothing but countryside for miles around, and in the winter they get clogged with snow. There aren't many safer places than that.”
I picked up a knife and scraped the blade on the edge of the table. Ginger flecks of rust fell to the floor. I put the knife on the other side of my belt, opposite to the blade I already had. Better to have two knives than one.
“There are two things I care about, Lou. Staying ahead of the wave, and sticking one of these in Moe’s throat if we ever see him.”
When we’d gone out to check out the wave, Moe had stayed behind in Vasey. He had promised to wait for us to come back, but instead he left soon after we were gone. He took half the village with him, and left the other half with nothing. Stalkers climbed the walls and massacred them, and Vasey was destroyed.
My chest hurt just thinking about the bastard. His barrel-chested body, his greasy hair, long at the sides but bald on top. Bile rose to my throat. I took a deep breath and tried to let it settle.
“Oh my god,” said Melissa from the living room.
I turned and ran out of the kitchen. I expected the worst; infected smashing through the windows, stalkers crawling on the ceiling. Instead, the pair of them stared at a large sheet of paper spread on the coffee table in front of them. Justin bent his head forward and scanned every inch of it. Mellissa looked up.
“You have to check this out, Kyle,” she said.
I looked over their shoulders at the paper. It was a map. Most of it displayed the green of the countryside around us and showed how remote the place was. Every so often an A-road twisted out and spiralled through the countryside like a worm. I followed the map up the north of England, over the border into Scotland. Then I saw it.
Someone had drawn a red lipstick circle around a town in Scotland, with arrows pointing to it. Next to it, they had written a message.
‘Darling, if you come back, come to Bleakholt. I couldn’t wait any more. It’s salvation.’
4
Hours later, in the thick of night, Alice, Justin, Melissa and I sat around the map. Whoever left it had drawn a circle around a remote town in Scotland called Bleakholt. According to the map, there was nothing near Bleakholt save a range of hills to the south that were so high they were almost mountains. A few miles east there was a lake.
‘Darling, if you come back, come to Bleakholt. I couldn’t wait any more. It’s salvation.’
The farmhouse door slammed, shaking the old timber beams that ran across the ceiling. Lou wiped a hand down her arm and sent water flying to the carpet. She took a step forward and smeared mud on the floor.
“Wet out,” she said.
I leant forward. “Take it Sana won’t come in?”
&
nbsp; Lou shook her head.
“You should have worn a coat,” said Alice.
I cleared my throat. “Guess we’re going to have to make this decision without Sana,” I said. “Lou, pull up a seat.”
Lou took hold of an arm chair and dragged it toward the coffee table. The map was in the middle of us. The edges curled up, and a brown coffee stain in the corner looked like a mountain range. I spread my hand across it, tried to flatten some of the ridges, but the paper curled back again.
