by Russ Watts
“Hurry up now, let’s crack on shall we?” called Rasmus. “I believe we are at the top of the hill. Around the bend I’m sure we will find the coastline in view.”
Tug shook his head. Rasmus was being too loud, too cocky; it was likely to lead them all into trouble. Tug stepped up the pace to catch up. He was going to have to get Rasmus back into line.
Rasmus bent down to examine something on the side of the road; a purple flower sprouting from a crack in the pavement. On another day, in another time, The Grave might have made for a fascinating study. With the land untouched for so many years, nature was changing the landscape, quite literally, and the flora and fauna with it. Beyond the row of houses, Rasmus could see a huge hill covered in yellow gorse, an unwelcome remnant of the Pakeha, and a spiky row of native cabbage trees towering into the sky. The hill cast a shadow over the land; a dark veil as if it wanted to hide the lifeless land from view.
Looking in the front yard of the house closest by, he saw Totorowhiti and a red Matipo that had grown to at least ten feet tall and just as wide. Whilst he had not yet seen any sign of animal life himself he was sure that it was there. So many of the birds and creatures of this land had been nocturnal before it had been renamed, and they were unlikely to have changed now. Since the influx of the dead, they had probably become more afraid of man, more timid, and better at hiding. Rasmus continued onward, feeling his mood lightened and his body full of vigour. His mind had suddenly clicked that he was in a wondrous place, dangerous yes, but really quite a magnificent place that promised so much to a scientist like him.
“Come now, my dears, almost there,” Rasmus called out.
Will and Kelly trudged not far behind Rasmus content to let him lead the way for now and there was a mutual trust in each other’s ability to find a way out. Will kept looking behind to make sure everyone else was keeping pace. Suzy and Claire were close and Tug was just ahead of them. The particular line that Kelly had asked for at the farmhouse had disintegrated. Tricia was now at the rear and Mark close behind her. Will saw Mark fiddling with his camera, but he knew full well that there was nothing wrong with it. Mark had been in enough situations to not need to prepare for action. His camera was always on, and Will suspected that Mark had hung back purposefully, so as to put the women in the middle of the group and himself deliberately at the back.
Assured they were safe enough, Will walked on and wondered if Rasmus was right. Beyond the top of the hill, he believed the plains would open out and they would be on course to reach the coast. If the clouds kept away, they would be able to see the coastline. Will pushed his hands further into his pockets, feeling the warmth of his body slowly sapping away. The air was still very cold and they had not had anything hot to eat or drink.
Rasmus, Tug, Will and Kelly had gotten through the row of houses safely and nothing had jumped out at them or attacked them. Suzy and Claire were almost clear and Tricia was ahead of Mark, who having seen the red Matipo that Rasmus had done a few minutes ago, had stopped to take a photograph. The shrub had entwined itself with a trail of white roses and the colours struck him as quite beautiful amid all the gloom of the ghost town. As he paused to admire the overgrown garden, a bright yellow ball rolled slowly toward Mark. He reached down as it neared him, picked it up and crushed the soft ball into his palm. Turning it around, he saw a smiley face had been crudely drawn onto it with a thick, black marker. The ball had rolled out of the doorway from the house one up from him, and as the others were still walking away, he tried to see why the ball had appeared now. Something must have caused it to move; a rat, a bird, or a gust of wind maybe. Perhaps it had just been dislodged by one of the others and they hadn’t even realised it.
Mark peered at the doorway the ball seemed to have come from. The house was dark and impenetrable. Beyond the swinging wooden door, there was just an icy blackness, as if the heart of the house had been ripped out. Mark could hear the rusty hinges creaking and the faint footsteps of his friends as they walked on ahead of him. They had passed through the row of houses without trouble and the little grey building beside him was the last cottage of the row.
He began to walk after the others, spying Rasmus at the front of the group now very close to the top of the hill. If one of the dead were in that house, he did not want to wait around for it. The hill they were walking up was quite short and in a moment, they would be out of sight of whatever might be in that house. Mark felt nervous about being so exposed in the street like this and a feeling of dread settled over him, sinking into his stomach uneasily.
Mark took one last quick look at the smiley face and then dropped the ball on the ground. It bounced away and ended up in the gutter where it bobbed along a stream of dirty rainwater. Mark watched the ball drift away and then turned his back on it and the row of houses. Suddenly, he wanted to be far away from here, the striking colours of the garden long forgotten. The group seemed so far away now; Rasmus, Will and Kelly were standing at the top of the road, just before it curved out of sight. Claire and Suzy were far away too and Tug and Tricia were in shouting distance, but he didn’t want to risk calling out. Mark felt a spatter of rain on his face and looked up. Almost from nowhere, a dark grey cloud had appeared and the heavens opened. The thick cloud hid the sun, and the village was enveloped by the shade of the cloud. Great drops of rain began splashing their way down Mark’s body and he quickly snapped the cover over his camera. Looking up, he realised that suddenly the others were barely visible through the deluge.
The rain increased in strength as Mark attempted to catch up with Tricia. He heard the swinging rusty hinges in the doorway behind him stop and then there was a bang as the front door to the little grey cottage crashed out of its frame and hit the ground. Mark whirled around and saw two figures emerge from the dark house. Two dead men stumbled out, their unblinking eyes focused on Mark. Mark froze in shock. The dead stood only a few feet away from him. The Deathless were here.
EIGHT
“Hey, move it!” shouted Mark as he rapidly caught up with Tricia. He had taken flight when the first dead man reached for him and only just managed to avoid being grabbed. Mark was now sprinting up the road.
“What’s wrong with…” Tricia pulled back the hood of her jacket and through the rain she saw Mark running toward her. Behind him were others; people she didn’t recognize.
Tricia began running and screaming at the same time. She splashed through a huge puddle and then tripped over a fallen branch, slipping onto her side. The knife she had been carrying flew out of her grasp and dropped into a storm drain far out of reach. Mark dropped to his knees to help Tricia up and turned around quickly to see how much time they had. One of the two men was slow, stumbling slowly along the road, whilst the other man was close: very close. He had pale skin, almost translucent, and he made urgent, throaty, grunting noises as he jogged toward them. His clothes were no more than rags over his gaunt body and the dead man ran between the raindrops like a ghost.
Mark hauled Tricia up to her feet and he shouted at her to run. He knew there was no way they would outrun it, so he braced himself, flinging his camera onto his back. He wished he had carried a weapon as Tug had suggested. He had thought he wouldn’t need one and it would only get in the way of his camera. He was regretting that decision now.
As Tricia ran screaming for help, the dead man advanced. Mark swivelled on the spot quickly and grabbed the dead man’s arms as they lunged for him. Mark spun the man around and twisted the arms backwards. One broke instantly, the brittle bones unable to keep fused together. The dead man hit the ground and Mark jumped onto the man’s back to stop him getting back up. He knelt over the dead man, pinning the body to the road as it thrashed beneath him. The dead body wriggled like a worm, unable to turn over as Mark sat on top of it, calling for help. He grabbed the man’s arms and pinned them to the tarmac, all the while struggling to keep the man from striking him as he bucked beneath him.
Tug skidded to a halt beside Mark. “Looks like you’
ve got a slippery one there, mate,” he said as he withdrew a large knife from his backpack.
“Just hurry up and do something, will you I can’t hold it for long,” hissed Mark. He was worried that the man was so frail that his arms would break clean off and then Mark would not be able to hold him down any longer.
“All right, all right, steady on, mate.”
Mark watched as Tug left to take care of the second figure. Tug quickly thrust his knife into the dead man’s skull through an eye socket, and the figure crumpled to the ground. Tug ran back to Mark and knelt down on the road before him. He held the knife over the dead man’s head. Tug clasped both hands around the handle and waited for the man’s head to still.
“Whenever you’re ready, Tug. Sometime today would be nice.” Mark felt the dead man beneath him squirming and almost felt sorry for him. How long had he been in that house? A week, a year, or five years? Had that house been the man’s home once, a home he had shared with a wife and children? What had he done to deserve dying like this?
Tug struck the knife into the man’s fragile skull and embedded the blade into the dead man’s brain. The knife went in, right up to the hilt, and instantly the man stopped moving. The arms that Mark held flopped down and he let them go.
Mark breathed out a sigh of relief. “Is he dead?”
Tug yanked the knife out and wiped the blade on his jeans. He stood and kicked the dead body. “Yep.” Tug turned and walked away, leaving Mark to get up and follow.
As Mark joined the others, he found Tricia sobbing beside Kelly. “Jesus, that was close.”
“There’s no more is there? Was that it? Are we being followed?” Claire was almost hyperventilating and Suzy tried to calm her down.
“Did you get bitten, Mark?” asked Tug, his hands still holding the knife.
Mark shook his head. “No, thank God. I think that was it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Rasmus, “I hope that wasn’t my fault. I didn’t mean to usurp you, Tug. I was just trying to hurry you all along, you know. I thought it best to get us going, to...”
“Talking. Chatting. Stopping to take sodding pictures. Do you lot think you’re out for a fucking picnic?” Tug tucked the knife back into his pack and raised a muscled arm. He pointed west. “That’s what you wanted to see, isn’t it, Rasmus? Is this what you were shouting about? Was it worth it? Nearly getting us all killed?”
They all looked to where Tug was pointing. Rasmus had been right after all. The coast was very much in view now, although they were a long way off. The road they were on followed the hill down to the coast, winding its way through grass fields dotted with farmhouses. Between them and the coast though, at the base of the hill, was a large town. They could see endless houses and buildings, shops and factories. Getting to the coast was not going to be as easy as they had hoped it would be.
Rasmus’ eyes darted about from one person to another. “Yes, but...I’m sorry, I just thought...”
“Well, old man don’t, okay? I’ll do the thinking from now on,” said Tug.
“All right, Tug, you’ve made your point,” said Kelly. “The main thing is we’re all okay. Right, Mark? Tricia?”
The raincloud was blowing away and the deluge had turned into a mere drizzle. The sun was threatening to disappear altogether though, only peeking out occasionally between the growing bands of clouds above.
“For now, we stick to the plan,” said Kelly. “We’re going down there to see if we can find a way to the coastline. We are going to take it slowly. If anyone falls over or gets stuck, we wait and stick together. This weather is going to make the road slippery. If we come across anymore houses, we go around them from now on. Once we get to the bottom of the hill, we’ll follow the road as much as we can. Tug and I will be at the front, no excuses. Tug’s right, this is not a Sunday school outing. Keep your heads together; it’s going to be a long day.”
It had taken them over an hour to reach the summit of the hill and Tug estimated it would take them at least as long to get to the bottom. Assuming they did not encounter any more of the dead, they may make the base by noon. The difficulty then would be getting through the town. The chances of it being deserted were slim. Tug felt frustrated, but he couldn’t go ahead and leave them. Not yet.
As they walked, their dry clothes slowly became wet again. The sky turned darker and the rain stronger. Minute by minute, they were drenched and so they began to talk, only in whispers this time, too fearful of talking out loud and waking the dead. Rasmus was afraid of incurring Tug’s wrath again and kept his voice low and soft.
“Do you want me to take a look at your wrist, my dear?” he asked Claire. He noticed she looked tired, understandably, but if anything, even paler than yesterday. She was probably in a lot of discomfort, but she was not saying anything about it.
“No thanks, Rasmus, it’s fine,” she said. She coughed and put her hand over her mouth to stifle the noise. “I’m just scared,” Claire blurted out. “I’m scared of touching anything in case it’s infected, scared of closing my eyes and when I do, scared of opening them again. I’m hungry, but I can’t eat. I’m thirsty, but I’m too scared to drink anything. I want to get out of here, but every step I take, it feels like we’re just getting closer to death, to them, the Deathless.”
Rasmus offered reassurances, but she clammed up and kept her head down, refusing to talk any more. As Claire kept walking, Rasmus fell back to walk in line with Will and Mark. “I’m concerned about Claire. Mentally, she’s very fragile right now. Her wrist is broken for sure, but I wonder if there’s something else. She doesn’t look well.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately? None of us do.” Will had thought the pickaxe would be useful and had wanted to carry it knowing it was heavy. He was now finding it a burden and it weighed him down. He refused to leave it behind though. He had seen how Tug had dispatched the dead man who had attacked Mark. If more came, they would need more than knives.
“I won’t be sad to see the back of this island. It’s horrible. It’s not just the dead. The whole place is just ruined. I never knew it before the Deathless, but it probably was a beautiful country. Look around you now. There’s death everywhere. The houses are malignant, the air stagnant...it gives me the creeps.”
“Come now, Will,” said Rasmus. “Just look at the vista below you.” He pointed to a gap in the hills that gave them a glimpse of the ocean. “There’s such a depth of foliage on the tress and an amazing variety of plant life. In the short time we’ve been here, I’ve seen Dactylanthus, rare ferns, Rimu, Matipo and things I could never see growing back home. Such healthy growth is amazing, especially here. If man were here, I doubt those trees would be. It’s only natural for us to expand and grow, to multiply, to want to colonise where we live, but it’s usually at the expense of the natural habitat. Do you see that plant over there? That’s Clianthus puniceus.”
Mark looked unimpressed as he ambled beside them. He had little intention of joining in the conversation, but liked listening to Rasmus and Will. He felt comforted too, knowing they were so close by, literally, and able to talk so easily. The incident with the dead man back there had left him shaken.
“Sorry, Kaka beak to you and me,” said Rasmus. “Those scarlet flowers have probably not been seen in this country for a decade, yet here it is sitting at the side of the road. Who knows how many more are growing now their habitat is left untouched.”
Mark took a photo of the flower as they moved on.
“You can see it how you want, but I prefer to be more pragmatic.” Will yawned, feeling exhausted. Last night’s sleep had not been restful. “You say life is flourishing here since man left. I say it’s dying. That Kaka flower, those trees – they’re only here because so many died. Millions, Rasmus, millions. They’re not symbolic of life to me - they’re just symbols of death.”
“I see, I see,” said Rasmus. “Look, I’m not a tree-hugger, don’t get me wrong. I’m on mankind’s side. What has happened, what is ha
ppening, is just terrible. But I can’t believe we have lost so much for nothing to come of it.”
“I guess we just see things differently.”
Mark sneezed and pinched his nose. “Bloody hay fever,” he muttered, wiping his nose on his jacket.
Will laughed. “See, Rasmus, not everyone is as happy as you are to be spending so much time in nature.”
“You know the Aqua-Gene didn’t hinder vegetation or organic growth in any kind of weed, plant or tree,” said Rasmus. “It only affects living beings, humans and animals. Look at this place. Everywhere we look, every branch we step on, and every blade of grass we crush has probably been touched by the Aqua-Gene. It’s in the soil, rivers, and fruit hanging from the trees. Yet if anything, the flora on this land is growing extraordinarily well. I saw some lemons back there that were twice their normal size. I remember some research done a long time ago on the effect it had on crops. Wheat and corn grew dramatically. They can grow perfectly well when cultivated by the Aqua-Gene. There’s life all around us.”
“It’s just a shame all those crops and fruits you talk about Rasmus are useless.” Mark took a photograph of a huge fern that was eleven feet tall. Its fronds offered them momentary respite from the rain.
“I hope those scientists are getting somewhere with their research,” said Will. “Imagine if we could harvest the Aqua-Gene. Imagine if it had actually worked. The people on this island wouldn’t be after our skin for starters. If all those millions of people were still alive today...”
“Then we’d have a different problem,” interrupted Rasmus. “We’d still not have enough food and water to go around. Millions would die of starvation or the diseases associated with lack of access to clean water. We bled the planet dry.”
“It’s not the millions you talk about I’m so worried about,” said Mark. “We don’t have access to water, do we? I mean it’s all around us, but it’s tainted. We have to assume everything here is contaminated. One drop and we’ve got a death sentence. Apples, berries, whole fields of edible food and yet we can’t eat a mouthful. How long would we have if we did? A day or two? Jesus, I’m scared to pick my nose in case my hands have touched anything and picked up the infection.”
