‘Well,’ he said with a low whistle, ‘I think you’re doing a pretty good job of looking after Gabriel so far. And in my honest opinion, the way things are going, it might not matter. This virus, or disease, or whatever it is... It’s spreading fast.’
‘Have there been more attacks?’
‘Not only here,’ he said, pausing to sip his beer, ‘but there have been reports of an outbreak abroad.’
‘What? Where was this?’
Kerry saw Beth’s eyes widen. She knew she was thinking about Desmond, who was currently in... Spain? No, that wasn’t it...
‘Switzerland,’ said Steve, and Beth let out a small gasp. ‘Funny story, though. Apparently a group of students were boarding somewhere and one of them got these syringes out, filled with silvery liquid, said it was a new drug in development. He and another didn’t take any, but allegedly the students who injected this drug woke up the next day with a taste for flesh. It was on the news the other day.’
Beth’s mouth hung open, and her food steamed feebly in front of her, waving for attention, but she seemed to be paralysed. Kerry glanced between the two. Steve looked troubled as he leaned back in his chair, his plate now empty.
‘It’s only a matter of time now,’ he said soberly. ‘The virus can’t be contained. Who knows how far across the globe it’s been carried? There’ll be outbreaks everywhere, one country at a time, and no one knows how to stop it.’
‘Preston says they’re “zombies”,’ said Kerry sheepishly. ‘But you’re saying they’re just ill, is that right?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘Why can’t they just go to the doctors then?’
‘They don’t know how to treat it yet,’ he explained with a gentle smile. ‘They say it’s a reaction to an experimental drug called Life. Now they’re naming it after the guy who developed it, which is kind of cruel if you think about it. What was his name...?’
Suddenly Beth shot to her feet, sending her fork flying. ‘I forgot to feed the cat.’
‘Um,’ said Kerry as Beth hurried away, her hands over her ears, and as she watched her Kerry wondered if Beth knew something.
‘It’s Bugle’s Disease or something like that,’ said Steve dismissively.
‘I think I would’ve had it,’ Kerry whispered, examining her amputated hand, which she held up between them, ‘if Preston hadn’t cut my finger off. I didn’t understand it at first. I thought I might get rabies or something, like dogs. But I got bit, you see.’
‘I see.’
Their conversation ceased as across the room, Gabriel approached Preston on all fours. Kerry and Steve watched from the booth as the baby used Preston’s jeans to haul himself to his feet. Preston scowled down at the fists on his leg, as if at a flea-ridden stray dog, but then reached down and hauled Gabriel onto the bar stool with him, perching the baby on one knee. Gabriel made a grab for Preston’s glass, but it was promptly moved away.
Kerry liked watching Preston with Gabriel. She’d always known him to be extremely anti-children, but he seemed to have a grudging soft spot for the baby, who expressed joy at any sort of attention. Gabriel seemed to possess some sort of magic that even Preston was not immune to.
‘Mum, mum, mum,’ Gabriel told Preston, now reaching for the half-eaten lasagne.
‘I’m not your mum,’ grunted Preston, moving the plate away too.
‘How did you meet Preston, Kerry?’ Steve asked thoughtfully.
‘My brother was his social worker,’ said Kerry. ‘He was working with troubled kids while he studied at uni. Then Pres started staying over at my brother’s flat most nights.’
‘Hmm...’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’m just curious about him,’ said Steve with a shrug. ‘He’s... He’s not exactly ordinary, is he?’
‘I think he’s okay,’ said Kerry, smiling as Preston blew on Gabriel’s stuck-up hair. ‘There’s a nice person somewhere inside him, I know it.’
‘That’s a sweet thought.’
As Steve cleared the table, Kerry joined Preston and Gabriel at the bar, where Preston was dipping his finger in his amber-coloured drink and letting the baby taste it. Kerry was sure Beth would disapprove, but Gabriel screwed up his face at the taste anyway and refused any more. Kerry giggled.
Gabriel continued to amuse them for a while, before Preston finally handed him over to Kerry and headed outside for a cigarette. It was growing dark by now, and Kerry was tired. She was looking forward to having Andrea home the next day, hoping it would raise Steve’s spirits. She got up, hefted the baby onto her hip and said goodnight to Steve, and then she made her way upstairs.
More beautiful weather blessed them the next day, and in the afternoon Kerry sat outside the inn’s entrance with Gabriel, bathing in the sunlight and watching Cat chase fat bumblebees in and out of bushes. On a patch of grass a few yards away, Preston and Beth fought.
Kerry didn’t like watching Beth and Preston fighting – if you could call it that. They had been doing this almost every day, and Beth still couldn’t get a hit in. She hit the floor again and again, be it on her knees, on her front or on her back, and she was covered in bruises. But still she insisted on doing it, and Kerry could tell Preston enjoyed it. She liked to think that Preston enjoyed the exercise, but she knew better.
Beside her, Gabriel ripped grass from the ground and tossed it around like confetti, oblivious to his mother’s grunts of pain. Watching him, Kerry suddenly felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. Unwittingly she was becoming Gabriel’s big sister, and he relied on her to keep an eye on him and take care of him. She didn’t spend any of her time thinking about princesses or unicorns anymore, and she didn’t crave trips to the park. She realised that it wasn’t just Beth and Preston who were changing. She just didn’t feel like a child anymore. She was a big sister, a cook and a cleaner. The child inside her was fading away, making room for the child she cared for. With this new knowledge playing on her mind, Kerry glanced between him and the road, anticipating Steve’s return.
Finally Steve’s white Corsa slid into the car park, interrupting the fight and commanding everyone’s attention. Even Gabriel watched as Steve ducked out of the car, then made his way around to the boot, out of which he pulled a folded wheelchair. Kerry’s heart leapt in her chest, and Beth caught her eye and grinned. Picking Gabriel up, Kerry approached the car, where Steve gently lifted his niece from the passenger seat.
Andrea’s hair was down for once, brushed over one shoulder, both of which were wrapped in a knitted grey cardigan. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked tired, but she smiled as Kerry stood before her. Steve covered Andrea’s lap with a patchwork blanket, but not before Kerry saw the bandages.
Andrea wore knee-length denim shorts, just short enough for bandages to peek through. The doctors, it seemed, had severed even more of her leg, so nothing existed below the knee. A solitary shoe poked out from beneath the blanket, and Kerry’s heart fluttered with sympathy.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked, wishing she could reach out to her, but Gabriel was too heavy to hold with only one arm.
‘Well,’ said Andrea with a drowsy smile, ‘I’m not a zombie, so that’s a start.’
Steve was positively glowing. His grin was infectious and there was a definite bounce in his step as he wheeled Andrea towards the inn. Kerry was glad for him.
As was the routine, the doors were barricaded as they all filed inside. Beth and Preston piled tables, chairs and potted plants at the entrance, fragmenting the light, before they moved into the dining area with Kerry and the others. Gabriel sat between Kerry and Andrea, who fussed over him. She smiled up at Preston, who met her gaze before glancing down.
‘Yeah, your work didn’t cut it,’ Andrea explained, ‘if you’ll excuse the pun.’
‘I will not excuse the pun.’
‘The cut was too untidy,’ Steve said, ‘so they severed the remains at the knee.’
‘I can see that.
’
Rolling her eyes, Beth elbowed him. ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.
‘Sometimes,’ replied Andrea with a shrug. ‘But thanks to Preston-’
‘Ugh,’ said Preston, and he stalked out of the room.
‘He doesn’t like gratitude,’ Kerry said knowingly.
‘Ah,’ said Andrea, ‘noted.’
‘We’re glad you’re back,’ said Kerry with a smile, and Andrea beamed back.
Over them, Beth and Steve shared a glance before Beth’s gaze returned to Gabriel, who was tugging playfully on Andrea’s fingers while she and Kerry chatted about this new, gruesome thing they now had in common.
As Andrea spoke, Kerry glanced between her and Gabriel, and then between Beth and Steve. She knew that Steve empathised with Beth, despite his daughter being dead. Andrea was his daughter now, in a way, and he, too, now felt ill-equipped as a carer for a girl in a wheelchair. Responsibility to keep kids alive now rested on both of them, and Kerry could tell that Beth was worried something similar – or worse – would happen to Gabriel.
‘He’s happy,’ Steve reassured her.
‘For now,’ muttered Beth.
The Squeak
Clumps of hair drift to the ground like ash, a mixture of grey and black. Preston feels the back of his neck prickle with cold as more hair flutters away. Everything is cold against him: Beth’s fingers, the blades of the scissors and the very atmosphere.
Surprise widened Beth’s eyes when she finished Gabriel’s haircut and Preston sat down in his place. She’d apologised for the things she said to him on Gabriel’s birthday, and Preston had given the kid his present, but he continues to nurse warm hatred for Beth over the past few days, hatred that, paranoid and neurotic as she is, Beth feels with every glance he sweeps over her. Not that what she said hurt him, of course. People have said far worse things about him and meant them, and they did nothing more than amuse him. He’s not actually sure why he hates her; he just knows that it’s fun and easy to.
Near the barn’s exit, where the bikes patiently wait, Gabriel flicks his new folding knife in and out, in and out, and Kerry triple-checks everything is packed. Both have had a trim, though on Kerry, whose red hair is long and curly, it doesn’t notice.
It is December the twenty-fourth, and they are finally going out. Despite her reluctance, Beth has grudgingly agreed that they need to stock up on things before the winter gets potentially awful. So after an early, pre-dawn start initiated by Preston, they’ve eaten breakfast, cleaned their teeth and dressed hurriedly, and now, as Beth concludes the final haircut, they’re ready to go. Ratbag sleeps soundly in the bundle of sleeping bags, uninterested in the others’ departure.
Preston hops off the car bonnet, purposely shouldering Beth hard as he does, and shrugs on a heavy black jacket with an amused smirk as she stumbles backwards, dropping the scissors. She says nothing, but the look of utter sadness and bewilderment on her face fills him with savage pleasure.
‘S-shall we get going then?’ she says shrilly, in a failed attempt to sound bright.
Without speaking Preston mounts his bike and lights a cigarette, holding himself steady with one foot planted firmly on the ground. Beth zips up Gabriel’s coat and rams a hat on his head before straddling her own bike, and then they’re off, led by Preston.
With the trailer rattling along behind him, Preston leads them around to the back of the barn, where a small gap in their traps and spikes allows the bikes to pass in single file. They circle the barn in a wide arc to get onto the road, and he leads the way north, inhaling on his cigarette as he steers one-handed.
Gabriel draws level with him as they fly across the motorway, hair bidding for freedom from beneath his hat, and Preston is reminded of his wild hair when he was a baby, sticking up at all angles after a nap. It’s strange, how nostalgic this child makes him feel sometimes. Gabriel grins at him, his shining blue eyes a stark contrast to the miserable grey sky, and Preston rolls his eyes back.
‘So where are we going?’ Gabriel calls over the whistling wind.
‘I thought we were going shopping,’ Preston replies, smoke illustrating his words.
‘Yes,’ says Gabriel, ‘but where?’
‘I don’t know. Admittedly I don’t know the area that well, but we’ll find somewhere.’
‘That’s comforting,’ snorts Gabriel. ‘I suppose at the very least it’s nice to be out.’
Preston grins. ‘You’re getting sick of your mother, too?’
‘Be nice! She apologised to you, didn’t she?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Liar,’ Gabriel accuses, shaking his head.
The air is concentrated with the damp, leafy smell of autumn’s demise, veiled by the smell of cigarette smoke. But despite the wet tarmac spitting up at their tyres the sky is white and dry. Preston is glad for the lack of rain; he refuses on principle to wear anything thicker than a leather jacket and his (a black one to replace his beloved red one, which he’d left back at the Sanctuary) does not have a hood. He’d had many a tussle – verbal and physical – with David about his so-called “coat issues”, but the arguments were dropped with proof that Preston never seemed to get ill.
The thought dissolves at the sound of an oncoming car, and the Four obligingly shift smoothly into single file on the edge of the road. The car passes in a hurry, flashing its thanks as it goes, its drivers wary of stragglers. This comes as no surprise; it is common knowledge that scavengers and slavers most often target motorways, and if you stop for anyone you’re probably going to be attacked and/or killed. Preston can remember many cases where he’s cycled on a motorway and come across a corpse – scavengers who’d unsuccessfully tried to get drivers to stop and had incidentally been flattened as a result. Several more cars pass, and the Four keep well out of the way.
Behind him and Gabriel, Beth and Kerry chat. He can tell by Kerry’s sympathetic tone that Beth is still in a bad mood, and the knowledge warms his heart. He strains to listen, but to his annoyance Gabriel speaks again.
‘Do you think we’ll get to see fireworks this year?’
Preston frowns at him. ‘What are you on about?’
‘New Year,’ says Gabriel. ‘Remember sitting on the motorway in January and watching the fireworks over the top of the city walls?’
‘Well we’re critically low on food,’ grunts Preston. ‘We’re being hunted by ugly old men with guns. The barn is a massive fixer-upper. I’m sorry mate, but I haven’t given fireworks a single thought.’
‘But it’s nearly New Year.’
‘And what’s so exciting about a new year? 2025 will be the same as 2024, if not worse.’
‘Well, aside from the fact that we survived another year,’ snaps Gabriel, ‘fireworks.’
‘You kids are too easily pleased.’
‘Didn’t you love fireworks when you were young?’
‘One,’ growls Preston, shooting Gabriel a scathing look and pointing at himself, ‘still young. And two: yes, actually, I did. They were lots of fun to aim at people and watch them running away clenching their buttocks.’
Gabriel cackles. ‘You’re evil.’
‘I never claimed not to be.’
‘Are you going to make a resolution?’
‘I think this year’s resolution was to never make another resolution.’
‘No it wasn’t,’ says Gabriel with a grin. ‘Your last resolution was to smoke more.’
‘Oh yes,’ says Preston, visibly pleased with himself. ‘Who ever said I can’t stick to anything? I’m doing a spectacular job!’
‘Well done,’ Gabriel laughs.
‘Thank you. Hey, I can do the no-resolutions resolution this year now!’
‘How very creative it is.’
‘Well I’ve covered all the important ones already – drink more, shoot more people, smoke more – what else is there?’
‘Perhaps,’ says Gabriel, ‘to smoke less?’
‘What good would that do?’
For an hour and a half they cycle, and the sky remains stubbornly blue and clear, and for a short while a river runs parallel to them, trickling faintly under the whizzing of their tyres. During this time Gabriel is lost to Preston, gazing dreamily at the rushing water, presumably trying with all his might to stretch the river in his mind’s eye, to picture an ocean topped with boats and most likely embellished with leaping dolphins.
Beth often tries to see the world through Gabriel’s eyes – Gabriel, who has never seen the ocean, through screen or misty air; Gabriel who has never tasted chips or chocolate or ridden on a train – and she tells the others in no uncertain terms how sorry she sometimes feels for her son in those moments. Now Preston watches him and he couldn’t feel less differently. The kid has grown up loved and protected fiercely, never allowed to get hurt and never told no. Preston grew up under opposite circumstances – not that he has ever shed light on this with Beth or Kerry. Gabriel may have suffered – as has everyone – but never has he had a fist raised at him by someone who so-say loved him. Foster homes may as well be alien planets. He has never been exposed to drugs. As far as Preston is concerned, the kid is blissfully ignorant.
The bitter thoughts are ripped from Preston’s mind by the squeal of brakes behind him. Squeezing his own brakes, he whips his head around to glower at the culprit. Kerry and Beth have stopped, and Kerry is inspecting an abnormality on her shoulder. Beth glances around anxiously.
‘We shouldn’t stop,’ barks Preston.
‘Something grazed her,’ Beth calls back.
Preston scans the roadside foliage as Kerry and Beth wheel their bikes towards him. He counts three separate potential hiding places close by, but not a leaf rustles under his penetrative glare. The bushes seem to be innocently holding their breath.
‘The cars kick up gravel,’ he says decisively. ‘That’s what it was.’
‘Or it was a bullet,’ counters Beth.
A rip the rough size of a grape gapes in Kerry’s sleeve but she is otherwise unharmed. Nothing else flies at them, and their surroundings remain stubbornly silent. Ahead, Gabriel glances nervously around. Preston sighs irritably.
After The End (Book 1): The Furious Four Page 27
