‘That’s a phantom itch,’ Andrea said. She reached out as if to touch Kerry’s hand, then thought better of it and dropped her own hand into her lap. ‘How old are you?’
‘I’m nine.’
Andrea looked up at Preston, her lip trembling. ‘She didn’t have painkillers, or...?’
‘Nothing,’ he grunted. ‘And look, you get to have a drink.’
‘My ankle is a lot thicker than her hand.’
‘You’ll live.’
The knife hovered over Andrea’s leg. She lifted a hand to gnaw at a fingernail, never mind the blood on her fingers. Preston pictured Aggie, worrying at a hangnail and scratching rashes on her skin. Symptoms, he realised.
Andrea closed her eyes, her breaths shaky. She seemed to know as well as Preston did that this could take a while longer than chopping off a child’s finger; he’d have to saw through skin, muscle, bone, and then muscle and skin again. It would be agony. But was the thought of becoming a mindless monster more or less agonising to her? She opened her eyes.
She nodded.
‘Ginger,’ he said levelly, ‘give her the vodka. Top her up whenever the glass empties.’ His gaze met Andrea’s as Kerry nodded. ‘Are you ready?’
‘I’m ready.’
As Steve sped out of the car park with Andrea draped across the back seat, Preston watched them go. He was coated in blood: his hands and arms were slick and scarlet, and an angry streak was smeared across his t shirt. His jeans, as luck would have it, only had a few specks on the knees. He could still hear Andrea’s screams echoing off the walls of his skull.
After having completed the gruesome task of hacking off poor Andrea’s foot, Preston had ordered Steve to take her straight to a hospital. Kerry had gone with them, tasked with stemming the blood flow and keeping Andrea awake. In hindsight feeding her alcohol hadn’t been wise, but he doubted she’d have consented without it. Beth remained by Hayley’s side, holding her hand, with Gabriel in her lap.
Preston took stock while he had a moment to himself. Including Joanne and a barely-breathing Hayley, thirteen bodies littered the ground of the pub and the reception. Five of the bodies were guests, some of which weren’t dead yet, just unconscious. All the other guests had fled.
Sighing, Preston got to work. He carried every dead or unconscious body outside and laid them out neatly in the car park, all apart from Joanne and Hayley, who he presumed Steve would want buried. After handling the bodies he took off his ruined shirt and wiped his hands in it, and then went back inside to tidy up the pub. Beth watched as he moved chairs and tables to the edges of the room, leaving the floor clear.
As he climbed the stairs to properly wash his arms and locate a clean shirt, Preston realised he was still tired, having had his nap interrupted by the attack. He let the thought of a nice hot coffee drive him as, with newly washed hands, he retrieved a shirt and his Twins. He slung the shirt over his shoulder and returned downstairs.
‘She still breathing?’ he grunted to Beth, gesturing towards Hayley.
Beth nodded, and her gaze fell first to his naked torso, and then on the guns in his hands. ‘What are those for?’
‘She’s going to die,’ he said, ‘and she won’t stay dead for long. The same goes for some of them outside. I haven’t put the theory to the test, but I assume shooting them in the head might prevent that.’
‘They should’ve taken Hayley with them,’ Beth muttered, squeezing the other girl’s hand gently. ‘They could’ve saved her.’
‘I don’t think there’s a cure, sweetheart,’ he grumbled.
‘Mmm,’ mumbled Gabriel sleepily as Preston dropped his fresh shirt onto a chair.
The image of Beth came with Preston as he returned outside, closing the door behind him to muffle the noise. He could clearly see her holding Hayley’s hands and cuddling a sleepy baby as he stood over an unconscious middle-aged man with a nasty bite on the side of his face. He pictured her flinching and closing her eyes respectfully as the first gunshot sounded, sending the man’s brains spilling onto the tarmac. His second victim only had time to stir before he put her down too.
An hour later, Preston sat on a bar stool and sipped his second coffee, finally wearing clean clothes and able to relax. Steve returned looking sickly, with Kerry in tow. Kerry hurried over to Beth and Gabriel, who was a dead weight in his mother’s arms. Offering Beth a kind smile, Kerry sat beside her and shifted the baby’s weight into her own lap. Steve sat opposite Preston in a daze. He noted the two golden guns atop his bar but said nothing.
‘Your wife and daughter need burying,’ said Preston tiredly. Steve glanced over at Hayley’s prone body. ‘I wouldn’t like to say when she bled out.’
‘She didn’t wake,’ said Beth with a shaky voice. ‘She drifted off peacefully.’
‘I suppose you want to shoot them both in the head too,’ said Steve quietly.
‘Well it’s up to you,’ replied Preston, ‘but I wouldn’t want to waste my time digging graves if they’re just going to climb out again.’
‘How’s Andrea?’ Beth asked.
‘Alive,’ said Steve with a weak smile, ‘which is more than I can say for...’ He tailed off, his eyes filling with tears, and turned to Preston. ‘I suppose I ought to go out and start digging, then. I don’t suppose...?’
‘Sure,’ Preston sighed. ‘I could do with the workout, I guess.’
Steve nodded and disappeared for a moment, and Preston approached the table where the now-dead barmaid still lay. Beth still held her hand, most likely in some mild form of shock. Hayley’s mouth was half open, frozen in the moment of her last breath. As Steve returned with two spades, Preston lifted Hayley as gently as he could.
‘It’s almost dinner time,’ said Beth quietly. ‘I’ll make something for when you’re done. If that’s okay, Steve...?’
‘Thank you,’ whispered Steve.
Thin drops of rain speckled their faces as they carried Hayley and Joanne outside. A patch of grass in the beer garden was just enough space to fit a shared grave into, and they set to work immediately.
As he dug, Preston tried to ignore the snuffling sound Steve was making and reflected on the past few weeks. Would grave-digging be a regular thing now? How many people would he bury before he just stopped bothering and left them to decompose or be eaten? It was interesting, too, how infection showed itself in subtle ways that he was already beginning to pick up on. What else had Aggie done before she’d lost her mind?
He thought hard. He pictured the clumps of hair on his jeans after she’d fallen asleep on him, and the patches of baldness on some of the further-gone zombies he’d seen. He remembered her mutilated nails and the rash on her skin. Maybe I should start taking notes, he mused. Symptoms: nail-biting, itching, hair loss. Known remedies: amputation.
‘It was her idea, you know,’ said Steve gruffly, ‘to open the place to refugees.’
Planting his shovel in the ground, Preston looked up at Steve as he searched his pockets for cigarettes. Steve continued to shovel dirt, his gaze fixed on the ground. His expression was blank.
‘Joanne always listened to the news on the radio,’ he continued, ‘while she worked the front desk. She heard about London, and then Bristol and Norwich.’ Preston raised an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, Norwich and Bristol happened a few hours apart, didn’t you know?’
‘I don’t pay attention to the news.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Steve, ‘you don’t care.’ Preston smiled wryly. ‘That’ll kill you, you know.’
‘If zombies don’t first,’ Preston concurred, blowing smoke into the breeze.
‘They’re calling them the “Ailing” on the news. Seems a bit less juvenile than “zombie,” don’t you think?’
‘If you say so.’
Clamping the cigarette between his teeth, Preston resumed digging. He tried unsuccessfully not to think of David as he dug, but the picture of mud littering his boyfriend’s face was sharp in his mind.
‘She wanted to help as soon as s
he heard,’ said Steve. ‘She came to me, said, “Steve, we have to do something, what can we do?” I was right in the middle of taking drinks orders. It was her idea to open our doors. “We have savings,” she said, “we can afford to.”’
Preston looked at him. He appeared to be in some sort of trance, speaking like his life depended on it, like singing Joanne’s praise would land her a VIP spot in Heaven. Preston hoped he wasn’t going to spout similar crap about his daughter once he was done with his wife.
‘She gave to loads of charities. “Oh, it’s only two pounds a month, Steve.” “Another pound a month won’t hurt, love, it’s for the animals after all.” She didn’t deserve this.’
‘That’s the thing, mate,’ grunted Preston.
‘Bad things happen to good people,’ sighed Steve.
‘And the terrible people like me get off scot-free.’
Steve looked at him then, his expression unreadable. ‘It seems so.’
Scavenger Territory
For a week and a half they’d slept in a different place every night: an abandoned motor home, another petrol station, empty cars and, one night, they even slept under the stars, taking it in turns to keep watch.
As afternoon reaches out to greet evening on the first day of November, the Furious Four descend upon a barn. It’s a mile or so away from the motorway, surrounded by fields and dwarfing a burned-down farmhouse. Its walls are made up of grey, moss-spotted wood and its roof is red and patchy. Inside, a silver car is parked beside an empty horse paddock. Bales of hay are piled to the ceiling, but most of the concrete floor space is free and open. Its doors are still operable, and as soon as they’re inside Preston shuts them.
Looking about him, Gabriel drops his bag on the floor beside his bike. He cartwheels in the wide, open space. He kicks a piece of hay aside. It’s not the Sanctuary, but he can picture the paddock as a sort of bedroom where they can squeeze in mattresses. They can store their food in the car, like a cupboard. There’s even a nail in the wall where they could hang the calendar. It can be the Sanctuary 2.
Glancing at the car and picturing it filled with tins, Gabriel’s stomach rumbles. They’ve been rationing their food over the last week, having not seen anywhere to steal from. He’s only shared a tin of grapefruit with Kerry so far today, and he’s looking forward to dinnertime, even if it is only another shared tin.
As if reading Gabriel’s mind, Kerry sets the sleeping bags out in the horse paddock, side by side, and Ratbag immediately settles down on them, relieved to have stopped travelling as usual. Preston takes a litre bottle of water out of one of the trailers and drinks before passing it to Beth. They don’t completely unpack, but Gabriel can’t resist hanging the calendar on the wall, attaching the marker to the top of the page.
Dinner is lavish, consisting of a tin of spaghetti each; a small hint that perhaps they won’t be travelling again tomorrow. Gabriel watches Beth and Preston as they eat and glance around, wondering if they’re picturing how they’ll decorate the barn too.
For the first time in what feels like months, they play songs after dinner, a longer set than usual, and Gabriel goes to sleep that night feeling hopeful and perhaps even happy. It rains in the night, and the drops are thunderous on the metal roof. Gabriel lies on his back, listening, and adds ‘loud rain’ to a small mental list of cons to living here.
‘Bloody hell,’ mutters Preston, who sits against the wall smoking a cigarette.
Gabriel lies on his side to face him. ‘It’s not so bad.’
‘Not as bad as sleeping outside,’ Preston agrees gruffly.
Kerry and Beth sleep obliviously on Gabriel’s left, but Gabriel can’t bring himself to sleep through the noise. It’s probably a dangerous deal-breaker; who knows what could be lurking out there while the rain hammers down on the roof? Even now it sets him on edge. But provided they survive the night, security measures can be taken. He realises that he really wants to settle here. A week and a half of homelessness is long enough, thank you very much.
Sighing, Gabriel sits up. ‘I’m halfway through that book, you know.’
‘I thought you’d have finished it by now,’ says Preston, flicking his cigarette butt away, watching the embers die on the concrete floor.
‘Yeah well we haven’t exactly had time,’ Gabriel retorts. ‘Anyway, I’m halfway through and there’s no mention of any Ratbag.’
‘That’s because he’s in the video game, not the books.’
‘What’s a video game?’
He could just make out a glint in Preston’s eye in the gloom. He knows the look well, even if he can’t see it properly now: pity. He tries to ignore it when it’s given, but he hates feeling ignorant. It is, after all, his peers’ fault he’s like this in the first place.
He decides to change the subject: ‘Potential new Sanctuary, do you think?’
Preston considers. ‘It’ll need a lot of work.’
‘Well you built two tree houses in a forest,’ Gabriel points out. ‘How much more work could a barn require? And look, I’m not a toddler this time, so you’ll have an extra pair of hands.’
‘I take it you want to stay here, then.’
‘Well it’s like you said. If a new place is going to take a lot of work, we need to pick one sooner rather than later. Winter is almost here.’
‘I’d rather put a lot of work into the right place.’
‘This could be the right place.’
‘We’ll see.’
Thunder claps overhead, and Gabriel counts two beats before light flashes in the solitary window, briefly illuminating Preston’s face, which looks blank, and wind howls woefully. Wriggling out of his sleeping bag, Gabriel grabs his book and a lantern and moves to sit beside Preston. The lantern is squashed between them, offering just enough light for Gabriel to make out the words on his page.
‘I think Bilbo might’ve been a more generous name for the cat,’ he says softly. He looks up at Preston. ‘Shall I read to you?’
Preston shrugs. ‘I’ll take over if you get too stoppy-starty.’
Gabriel rolls his eyes. ‘I’m a good reader, I’ll have you know.’
‘Get on with it, then.’
‘“He woke and found himself in an unfamiliar bed,”’ Gabriel reads, quietly enough so as not to disturb the girls, but loudly enough for Preston to hear. ‘“At first he thought he’d slept late through a long and terrible dream...”’
Preston’s shoulders relax and he settles down, absentmindedly stroking the cat as he listens. Gabriel pauses to smile as Preston leans on him, their shoulders touching, before resuming his reading. It’s cosy, reading with the rain beating on the tin roof, and Gabriel is almost glad for the rain waking him up.
Occasionally Gabriel gasps, reacting to his own narration. His face spreads to accommodate a large grin at the return of Gandalf, and just as quickly his mouth forms an O in reaction to the news of the wizard’s capture. Preston looks down at him, watching his expressions change as he reads.
As the rain eases, Gabriel falls asleep like this, dropping the book into his lap. When he wakes, Preston remains beside him, but his arm has snaked around Gabriel’s shoulders and Gabriel’s head rests on his chest. The book is closed and earmarked on the floor beside Preston and the cat lies across both their laps. Sunlight spills sparingly onto them from the window, attempting to also trickle through the slats in the walls.
While they wait for the girls to wake up, they read a little more, but Gabriel is distracted. It’s their first morning of perhaps several in the barn, and he wants to explore it. Every now and then he glances up from his page, and then loses his place when his gaze returns to it. Preston soon grows tired of this and they get up.
As Preston shoves aside the barn doors and disappears outside to pee, Gabriel makes for the stacks of hay cubes in the corner. It makes for an enjoyable climbing frame, and within seconds he’s at the top, only a few feet separating him from the roof. He discovers a damp hole in the corner where two walls m
eet, and he mentally notes it. Up here, under the hole, the hay is slightly damp. He also notes that, covered with something solid, the hay bales could make decent shelves for their food should the car prove disagreeable.
In the paddock, Beth stirs as Gabriel is descending the haystack. She peers over at him, squinting, and he bounds happily to her, grinning from ear to ear. She smiles sleepily and pulls him down next to her.
‘What have you been up to, young man?’ she murmurs, breathing him in.
‘Exploring,’ he replies, pushing her face away. ‘Do you think we’ll stay here, Mum?’
‘Potentially,’ she sighs. ‘It’s definitely a down-size and a fixer-upper, but it’s better than the petrol station.’
They start as all of a sudden Ratbag tears across the barn, yowling. Preston returns, shutting the door behind him, his gaze following the cat.
‘Mice,’ Beth guesses as Preston sits down opposite them.
‘Ooh, can we keep them?’ says Gabriel.
‘I think Ratbag will most likely keep them in his stomach,’ she replies. She looks at Preston. ‘So what do you think?’
‘I think all cats eat mice.’
‘Ha, ha,’ she says dryly. ‘You know what I meant.’
He shrugs. ‘I think before we make any decisions we need to restock on supplies. We should’ve put the empty water bottles outside last night because it rained bloody torrents.’
‘So we go shopping today,’ says Beth, ‘and sleep here again tonight. And then...?’
‘Two of us can go shopping,’ Preston corrects her. ‘The other two can take stock of the barn. Find out what needs fixing, what we can use and what security measures we’d need to take if we stayed here.’ He shoots Gabriel a pointed look. ‘At the very least we’d have to reinforce the walls, set up some sort of perimeter and somehow acquire furniture. We’ll have to get creative about bathroom facilities.’
‘I volunteer to go shopping,’ says Gabriel, ‘though I can already point out to those of us who’re staying that there’s a hole in the wall up in that corner.’ He points to the haystack.
After The End (Book 1): The Furious Four Page 21
